Galactic Armies

[PersonMan]

I've been thinking about making a more structured version of an idea I've had form a while, and have come to the numbers. The story revolves around the incredibly long war between several factions, each of which control hundreds of planets. So, I've been wondering, what kind of forces do these people have?

Assume that most larger ships can "jump" to travel incredibly quickly between systems, and that every galaxy has at least a planet or two that is useful in some way (farming, mineral resources, rare gases, etc). And that nuclear weapons aren't being used due to a treaty, which is enforced by a powerful group, which isn't taking sides and is strong enough that nobody wants to add them to their 'enemies' list.

Also, what sort of advantages/disadvantages would armies of mostly machines have? Assume that most can be outfitted with relatively inexpensive EMP protection.

[Alteran]

My first thought is that this kind of war will be almost unwinnable without weapons of mass destruction (nuclear or otherwise). If each side has hundreds of planets, then I feel that conventional warfare (except in space) wouldn't work. There would simply be too much land to conquer, and not enough time to do it. This kind of war could go on for millennia without any side achieving victory.

[Mercenary Pen]

Also, what sort of advantages/disadvantages would armies of mostly machines have? Assume that most can be outfitted with relatively inexpensive EMP protection.

I remember an older Doctor Who episode proposing a similar scenario- with two massive, more or less equally matched fleets being controlled by opposed mechanized races... Resulting in a stalemate, because both sides ran simulations that showed neither to have the advantage or re-positioned relative to the other to negate any strategic advantage the manoeuvreing of the other fleet may have conferred... I can't remember the name of the story now, but it involved the Daleks...

[PersonMan]

My first thought is that this kind of war will be almost unwinnable without weapons of mass destruction (nuclear or otherwise). If each side has hundreds of planets, then I feel that conventional warfare (except in space) wouldn't work. There would simply be too much land to conquer, and not enough time to do it. This kind of war could go on for millennia without any side achieving victory.

Yep. Which is why it's perfect. Everyone has relatively loose borders, and occasionally someone makes a big thrust into another's territory-but the war is effectively unwinnable. Doesn't stop them from fighting, though.

Several WMD have been built, and they are often destroyed after being used a few times, and are usually impossible to mass produce, resulting in mass attacks on their positions.

[PersonMan]

I remember an older Doctor Who episode proposing a similar scenario- with two massive, more or less equally matched fleets being controlled by opposed mechanized races... Resulting in a stalemate, because both sides ran simulations that showed neither to have the advantage or re-positioned relative to the other to negate any strategic advantage the manoeuvreing of the other fleet may have conferred... I can't remember the name of the story now, but it involved the Daleks...

I see. However, most machine-armies are led by biological leaders and the like. The largest is the AMF, who has an obscene amount of territory and resources. The only reason they haven't won yet is because of the size of the playing field and the fact that they attack everyone rather than being one of the three main factions.

[Trobby]

I don't mean to be rude, but shouldn't a discussion on a possible writing concept go in the Arts and crafts (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=27) forum?

Anyway, look towards reality-based science fiction for some cool ideas on how weapons might work in space. Classic missiles might do the trick, though if you really want to add a level of cool to your story, make sure you include at least one faction with a Railgun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun)

[daggaz]

You have warp technology, and as well some sort of instantaneous communications network based on it (or you are going to find an empire spanning hundreds of planets to be impossible, even if the ships can jump).

Nuclear weapons are a thing of the past, like using a knife in a gun fight. The other thing that seems off with this one, is the idea of some powerful side enforcing the "ban." If they are that much more powerful to actually do this, they would have won the war in the first place. Far more likely its a Mutually Assured Destruction situation in that case. But if they really arent involved for whatever reasons, they still sound like they would be the real point of interest in the universe. They should have in that case at least settled the dispute, considering they take enough interest to enforce the ban. Why go thru decades of policing little kids when you can just stop the fight?

That said, why are the different sides at war? They have freaking lightspeed starships and the entirety of the cosmos to pick thru at their leisure. Its not like space or resources are going to be scarce.. So whats the beef? Hard to imagine any kind of massive, long term serious conflict if its not inter-species in origin at this point.

[PersonMan]

You have warp technology, and as well some sort of instantaneous communications network based on it (or you are going to find an empire spanning hundreds of planets to be impossible, even if the ships can jump).

Nuclear weapons are a thing of the past, like using a knife in a gun fight. The other thing that seems off with this one, is the idea of some powerful side enforcing the "ban." If they are that much more powerful to actually do this, they would have won the war in the first place. Far more likely its a Mutually Assured Destruction situation in that case. But if they really arent involved for whatever reasons, they still sound like they would be the real point of interest in the universe.

That said, why are the different sides at war? They have freaking lightspeed starships and the entirety of the cosmos to pick thru at their leisure. Its not like space or resources are going to be scarce.. So whats the beef? Hard to imagine any kind of massive, long term serious conflict if its not inter-species in origin at this point.


Nuclear weapons aren't used because they're weak, they're used because they cause too much damage, ruin life, radiate minerals, etc. The side upholding the ban is known as the Observers, who basically collect knowledge and...well, observe. They enforce official treaties and this works because everyone is just about equal, and anyone strong enough to beat everyone one-by-one is usually attacked by everyone. Therefore, having the Observers attack you is not a good thing.

Also, the "warp speed" isn't incredibly fast. It's fast enough for relatively short journeys, hopping systems and moving through them an the like, but for going across a galaxy or between them, they don't work very well.

[PersonMan]

I don't mean to be rude, but shouldn't a discussion on a possible writing concept go in the Arts and crafts (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=27) forum?

Anyway, look towards reality-based science fiction for some cool ideas on how weapons might work in space. Classic missiles might do the trick, though if you really want to add a level of cool to your story, make sure you include at least one faction with a Railgun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun)

No rudeness issue with what you're saying, it's that what I'm doing is more of a roleplaying/writing thing. It can either be a setting or writing project. Also, I'm asking for more "crunch" rather than help writing/drawing/visually enhancing/making great art of.

Also, most sides are using Rule of Cool-ified laser weapons. Railguns are used, but not very often.

[Mercenary Pen]

We also need to know the specific constraints of your warp/FTL/insta-travel technology...

Can the jumping ship simply drop itself unopposed into the atmosphere of an enemy planet, drop a payload of bombs and missiles and bug out?

Can a ship be hunted down and engaged in combat while using this travel method?

Is it similar to normal travel apart from using some (highly convenient) alternate dimension to bypass Einsteinian relativity?

(these questions are all based upon transit systems from real teklevisual SF series, and will say a lot about the tactics your various forces will employ)

[PersonMan]

We also need to know the specific constraints of your warp/FTL/insta-travel technology...

Can the jumping ship simply drop itself unopposed into the atmosphere of an enemy planet, drop a payload of bombs and missiles and bug out?

Can a ship be hunted down and engaged in combat while using this travel method?

Is it similar to normal travel apart from using some (highly convenient) alternate dimension to bypass Einsteinian relativity?

(these questions are all based upon transit systems from real teklevisual SF series, and will say a lot about the tactics your various forces will employ)

Nice. I'm loving these quick responses.

1: Jump into atmosphere is impossible, as travel is via a quasi-alternate dimenion/high speed fusion. Ships jumping into an atmosphere would be incinerated/torn apart.
2: Usually ships move relatively short distances(ie between planets or solar systems), but ships on a long trip could be engaged. But they could drop out in a safe zone and then "jump" back into the "warp space", putting a huge gap between them and the enemy.
3: Sort of, yes.

[Coidzor]

So, why would they get incinerated by jumping into an atmosphere? The amount of matter they're going through as opposed to what they'd encounter out in space? Are Nebulae effective barriers that have to have courses plotted around them, then?

[PersonMan]

So, why would they get incinerated by jumping into an atmosphere? The amount of matter they're going through as opposed to what they'd encounter out in space? Are Nebulae effective barriers that have to have courses plotted around them, then?

Not quite. It's the deceleration. The engines/thrusters are built to do it in a vacuum, and the ships aren't built to withstand the friction or sudden appearance within a gas, solid, etc. Specialized ships have to be built to do so, and require incredibly expensive fuel and engines to survive even a single such arrival.

[Wolfscarab]

This sounds very interesting, I can't wait to hear more.

On what forces each side would have... I know its a bit cliched, but would any of them happen to have Mecha of sorts(humanoid or otherwise)? Though... for all I know, they might be to low tech or low range for this sort of setting...

[Mercenary Pen]

Okay, if jumping into atmosphere will destroy the ship, then the only issue is gonna be making it cheap enough that you can keep building these robotic suicide bombers... because if a payload can make the blast radius big enough, they'll still be used.

If the issue is the deceleration, then we won't bother with bombing from within atmosphere and bugging out, we'll create as inexpensive a ship as possible and aim for ground level, hoping that an jump or three, precisely targeted might blow up a staging area or a factory. Possibly we'd load up with regular munitions as the payload (for massive immediate damage), but subsequent jumps might have payloads of submunitions to create beaten zones full of unexploded submunitions- thus stopping the enemy from easily putting stuff up where you just knocked it down.

Basic principle of FTL-missile operations laid out for you.

[PersonMan]

This sounds very interesting, I can't wait to hear more.

On what forces each side would have... I know its a bit cliched, but would any of them happen to have Mecha of sorts(humanoid or otherwise)? Though... for all I know, they might be to low tech or low range for this sort of setting...

There's two sides with mecha. One side uses them as their main tank-type unit, it can fire missiles, and has a head-machine gun turret and a powerful rifle.

The other group has them as elite units, usually armed with powerful energy weapons and the ability to build smaller units in combat.

And, about your other comments, it depends. Building an upright unit would be easy, large size could be accomplished as well. Making combat-ready mechs is expensive enough that it's generally not used. One of the two factions that uses them grows their soldiers from raw materials and seed-like structures.

[PersonMan]

Okay, if jumping into atmosphere will destroy the ship, then the only issue is gonna be making it cheap enough that you can keep building these robotic suicide bombers... because if a payload can make the blast radius big enough, they'll still be used.

If the issue is the deceleration, then we won't bother with bombing from within atmosphere and bugging out, we'll create as inexpensive a ship as possible and aim for ground level, hoping that an jump or three, precisely targeted might blow up a staging area or a factory. Possibly we'd load up with regular munitions as the payload (for massive immediate damage), but subsequent jumps might have payloads of submunitions to create beaten zones full of unexploded submunitions- thus stopping the enemy from easily putting stuff up where you just knocked it down.

Basic principle of FTL-missile operations laid out for you.

The main problem with such a strategy is that "warp" engines are expensive. Cheap enough to mass-produce, but expensive enough that unless you can put them directly inside an incredibly high-value target, it won't be worth it, since ground troops and the like are hideously cheap.

Also, high-value targets often have "warp mines" set up in the alternate dimension through which this "hyper-travel" is made, making such bombing not an option.

Also, if everyone did that then nobody would bother building on planets, and whichever side had the largest fleet would win.

[_Zoot_]

Well, the first thing that any one needs if there going to take a planet are war ships that can carry the (potentiality) millions of ground troops that are necessary. After that they need a logistics net work that can support that many troops, it isn't worth my time to figure out how they would do that.

Ship to ship fighting will be very different depending on how realistic you want to make this world, if it doesn't need to be very real then you can hand out Lasers and energy shields and stuff like that. If you want a more real war then all fighting will be done by kinetic impact weapons (missiles with no warhead), why? Because it is really easy to get missiles going fast enough to do more damage then any warhead in space.

Once you have chosen how you intend to do space battles the nest step is to figure out how to attack a planet. If the teams REALLY hate each other and want to kill not capture it is really easy to attack a planet. Find a really big rock (an asteroid or the like) and accelerate it at the planet. Then deploy anti missile ships to defend the rock until it hits the planet and (if you picked a big enough rock) wipes all life from it. At that point you can just send down ground troops to mop up the survivors.

If however the teams want to capture the planets then it is harder. Their options depend on how the planet is defended, any orbital forces will have to be engaged (and probably fought off because other wise you risk stranding any ground troops that you land) before and ground operation can start.

The landing tactics would probably be 'sit back and shoot all defensive positions from space, then land troops to claim the planet' or jump in as close as possible and then unleash shock units (like ODST's (if you know them) but of course you wouldn't only deployed shock infantry, you would also have to give them armor and air support). The shock units would then knock-out planetary guns and anything else that could threaten you starships, once this was done you can land all the troops that you need to overrun the enemy.




Well, thats what I think war in the future would be like, by the way, did you read my mind because I have been sitting on an idea like that one for a wile now :smalltongue:

[PersonMan]

Well, the first thing that any one needs if there going to take a planet are war ships that can carry the (potentiality) millions of ground troops that are necessary. After that they need a logistics net work that can support that many troops, it isn't worth my time to figure out how they would do that.

Ship to ship fighting will be very different depending on how realistic you want to make this world, if it doesn't need to be very real then you can hand out Lasers and energy shields and stuff like that. If you want a more real war then all fighting will be done by kinetic impact weapons (missiles with no warhead), why? Because it is really easy to get missiles going fast enough to do more damage then any warhead in space.

Once you have chosen how you intend to do space battles the nest step is to figure out how to attack a planet. If the teams REALLY hate each other and want to kill not capture it is really easy to attack a planet. Find a really big rock (an asteroid or the like) and accelerate it at the planet. Then deploy anti missile ships to defend the rock until it hits the planet and (if you picked a big enough rock) wipes all life from it. At that point you can just send down ground troops to mop up the survivors.

If however the teams want to capture the planets then it is harder. Their options depend on how the planet is defended, any orbital forces will have to be engaged (and probably fought off because other wise you risk stranding any ground troops that you land) before and ground operation can start.

The landing tactics would probably be 'sit back and shoot all defensive positions from space, then land troops to claim the planet' or jump in as close as possible and then unleash shock units (like ODST's (if you know them) but of course you wouldn't only deployed shock infantry, you would also have to give them armor and air support). The shock units would then knock-out planetary guns and anything else that could threaten you starships, once this was done you can land all the troops that you need to overrun the enemy.




Well, thats what I think war in the future would be like, by the way, did you read my mind because I have been sitting on an idea like that one for a wile now :smalltongue:

1: Yes. I've assumed they have that.
2: Capture is almost always key. Destroying a planet, or even just smacking it with a huge asteroid would quite possibly destroy some of the resources on it. And planetary captures are long, but a lot shorten than current wars, due to rapid transportation and the like.
3: Planetary guns are rare, and very expensive. So they aren't used much. Planetary barrage is unlikely, as it would probably destroy some of the resources to be acquired from the planet.
4: For space battles, there are two types of shields: energy and magnetic. Energy shields are more sci-fi-like, while the magnetic ones hold a layer of tiny metal spheres in place near the ship blocking or deflecting attacks directed at it.

And I doubt my universe is much like yours...Well, it could be, but I don't think so. Most land battles consist of absurd amounts of troops blasting eachother, or one group sitting inside huge bunkers and the like...

[_Zoot_]

1: Yes. I've assumed they have that.
2: Capture is almost always key. Destroying a planet, or even just smacking it with a huge asteroid would quite possibly destroy some of the resources on it. And planetary captures are long, but a lot shorten than current wars, due to rapid transportation and the like.
3: Planetary guns are rare, and very expensive. So they aren't used much. Planetary barrage is unlikely, as it would probably destroy some of the resources to be acquired from the planet.
4: For space battles, there are two types of shields: energy and magnetic. Energy shields are more sci-fi-like, while the magnetic ones hold a layer of tiny metal spheres in place near the ship blocking or deflecting attacks directed at it.

And I doubt my universe is much like yours...Well, it could be, but I don't think so. Most land battles consist of absurd amounts of troops blasting eachother, or one group sitting inside huge bunkers and the like...

Cool, if there not into anything that might destroy recourses then I would say that most attacks would go like this:

1. Attacking fleet drives defending fleet/orbital defenses away from planet.

2. Attacking fleet uses shock troops to take landing areas.

3. Attacking fleet lands large planetary assault transports (ships loaded with all the troops, tanks, other bits and bobs that are needed to take a planet.

4. Attacking fleet uses targeted orbital strikes to knock out bunkers and forts

5. The 'absurd amounts of troops blasting each other' stage starts.

???????

PROFIT!!

[xPANCAKEx]

probably boils down to who has the best production line/resources

[PersonMan]

Cool, if there not into anything that might destroy recourses then I would say that most attacks would go like this:

1. Attacking fleet drives defending fleet/orbital defenses away from planet.

2. Attacking fleet uses shock troops to take landing areas.

3. Attacking fleet lands large planetary assault transports (ships loaded with all the troops, tanks, other bits and bobs that are needed to take a planet.

4. Attacking fleet uses targeted orbital strikes to knock out bunkers and forts

5. The 'absurd amounts of troops blasting each other' stage starts.

???????

PROFIT!!

Exactly. Except replace the last two phases with:

6: Take insane amounts of losses.

7: Spend another month attacking.

8: ?????????

9:Profit!

[PersonMan]

probably boils down to who has the best production line/resources

They're effectively evenly matches.

One side uses sheer numbers but weak, inexpensive units.

Another is more rounded out.

And the third uses a small number of powerful, expensive units.

[Don Julio Anejo]

A few tactical suggestions:

1. Well developed planets could have large subterranean tunnel networks where at least a part of the population could hide in an emergency for years (with hydroponic chambers to grow food, water recycling systems, etc). Then they could quite easily make the life of anyone who's captured the planet a living hell. And extremely hard to wipe out without, you know, following in Darth Vader's footsteps.

Which means that:
- you don't want to piss off the population too much so they don't do this to you
- you don't want to use orbital bombardment since it'll destroy infrastructure and resources that you need
- but it won't destroy the hostile population

2. Small pod-sized planetary troop carriers instead of big ones. A big troop carrier can be shot down by a single surviving hidden missile, taking everyone on board with it. Small ones are harder to target and you lose less people when one goes down. Even if you don't care about people themselves, it still makes more sense from a logistics purpose so you don't have to ferry people all the time.

3. A side with few but really good units will probably win an all-out fleet war because they're going to have less problems with logistics. Why? Because:
- they're going to lose fewer units in engagements
- the units they keep are going to maintain their combat effectiveness because of better training, more reliable equipment, etc
- the cheap units are going to be screwed and disorganized after they take some losses, also their ships are probably going to be harder to repair (need more spare parts for more ships, they may not always be available, etc)
- the cheap units are also easier to rout
- replacing a lot of units puts a much larger strain on your logistical system. Simply put, you're going to need much more ships to ferry your soldiers because many more are going to die. That means more fuel, more ammunition, etc
- for a side with good units, it's easy to declare empire-wide recruitment and get a bunch of cheap units if they really need to
- for a side with cheap units, it's going to be much more difficult to get good high-end units simply because your units will die before they get any good, and if you pick out those that are good, you'll pretty much leave your entire army without good, experienced soldiers/officers (look at the losses Russia took in early WWII... the commanders simply had absolutely no idea what to do both tactically and strategically, even the general staff messed up).

4. The side with cheap units will probably have a much easier time occupying planets. There's simply much more of them to fight and when you're fighting civilians, it doesn't matter how good you are, air support and a military-grade gun is already a pretty good equalizer.

5. The entire thing will be a war of attrition.

6. Also, you can't advance too far into someone's territory because you're going to stretch your logistics to the limit and eventually defeated simply because the other side can get troops and materiel where they need to be faster because they spend less time traveling. It's more logical to conquer a few systems and then consolidate for a decade or so while building up supply depots and the like.

[PersonMan]

A few tactical suggestions:

1. Well developed planets could have large subterranean tunnel networks where at least a part of the population could hide in an emergency for years (for example, hydroponic chambers to grow food). Then they could quite easily make the life of anyone who's captured the planet a living hell. And extremely hard to wipe out without, you know, following in Darth Vader's footsteps.

Which means that:
- you don't want to piss off the population too much so they don't do this to you
- you don't want to use orbital bombardment since it'll destroy infrastructure and resources that you need
- but it won't destroy the hostile population

2. Small pod-sized planetary troop carriers instead of big ones. A big troop carrier can be shot down by a single surviving hidden missile, taking everyone on board with it. Small ones are harder to target and you lose less people when one goes down. Even if you don't care about people themselves, it still makes more sense from a logistics purpose so you don't have to ferry people all the time.

3. A side with few but really good units will probably win an all-out fleet war because they're going to have less problems with logistics. Why? Because:
- they're going to lose fewer units in engagements
- the units they keep are going to maintain their combat effectiveness because of better training, more reliable equipment, etc
- the cheap units are going to be screwed and disorganized after they take some losses, also their ships are probably going to be harder to repair (need more spare parts for more ships, they may not always be available, etc)
- the cheap units are also easier to rout
- replacing a lot of units puts a much larger strain on your logistical system. Simply put, you're going to need much more ships to ferry your soldiers because many more are going to die. That means more fuel, more ammunition, etc
- for a side with good units, it's easy to declare empire-wide recruitment and get a bunch of cheap units if they really need to
- for a side with cheap units, it's going to be much more difficult to get good high-end units simply because your units will die before they get any good, and if you pick out those that are good, you'll pretty much leave your entire army without good, experienced soldiers/officers (look at the losses Russia took in early WWII... the commanders simply had absolutely no idea what to do both tactically and strategically, even the general staff messed up).

4. The side with cheap units will probably have a much easier time occupying planets. There's simply much more of them to fight and when you're fighting civilians, it doesn't matter how good you are, air support and a military-grade gun is already a pretty good equalizer.

5. The entire thing will be a war of attrition.

Well...big post.

1: Yes. Orbital bombardment is never used anyways, but this is a good idea.
2: "Big troop carriers" are huge. Imagine a large sports stadium full of soldiers. This is a smaller troop carrier. Well, for sending troops to the surface from space, that is.
3: The sides with larger numbers of not-so-good units still have good units, just...not as good. Also, the aforementioned good units take a lot of resources to train, and then more to get to the fronts.
4: The cheap units aren't necessarily bad, and for the most part, the civilians of the border planets tend not to fight back much, and the fighting is concentrated away from cities, etc. If you push deep into enemy territory, or strand a bunch of enemy units, expect civilian guerrilla tactics. If not, don't.
5: Sort of.

[Don Julio Anejo]

History had demonstrated that people living along the borders actually fight back more than people in the core cities. Because people along the borders usually have something to fight for (such as their freedom if it's a newly established colony) or because they're used to fighting back, be it from major powers or pirates/raiders. They may fight back if only for the hell of it unless the invading side actually treats them much, MUCH better than the side they belong to.

While people living in the cities (in this case - core planets) are used to living a dull and unexciting life and usually have something to live for, such as the accumulation of material wealth (sorry, saw Michael Moore's Capitalism today :smalltongue:) and probably won't fight back risking their skins if they know their life won't change too much save for a different flag at the local city hall. Unless you really, REALLY piss them off.

The problem is that there's usually many more of them so even a few unhappy souls could cause just as much trouble as the entire population of a border planet.

PS: a football stadium of soldier's actually isn't that big by space standards. I thought you meant something along the lines of a ship a few kilometers big, filled to the brink with soldiers and materiel. But even then, IMO go for something smaller unless it's easy to shield the soldiers. By that time I'm pretty sure there will be weapons the size of a stinger missile that can take out half that ship. Even if you kill the guy using it afterwards.

@madtinker: The Japanese were the first actually, in 1904-05. It just worked out better for the Germans in 1917.

[madtinker]

The first thing we learn from General MacArthur is that it is impractical to take over every single island (system). Island hopping is the way to go.

Secondly, never get involved in a land war in Asia. If both sides can through however many machines they want at whatever, you are dumping them into a black hole.

US Grant only fought a war of attrition because he knew the South couldn't just build more soldiers. Accepting losses made sense tactically. If neither side loses anything, why even bother?

Take out the droid control ship. If I were in such a conflict, 90% of my resources would go into communications - disrupting or controlling the enemy machines. Even really, really smart machines are only as smart as you make them, and only know what you tell them.

The pen is mightier than the sword. While the general population may or may not be accessible, and if the conflict has continued long enough, nobody really wants to continue it except the big wigs. Incite rebellion and unrest in the opposing population and let them handle it. This worked for Germany to get Russia out of WWI (they backed Lenin and he took over Russia to form the USSR).

In short, I would never throw good resources after bad. Hit them where it hurts: strategic locations, communications, and propaganda.

[madtinker]

@madtinker: The Japanese were the first actually, in 1904-05. It just worked out better for the Germans in 1917.

I'm an engineering major. The details of history escape me. :smallcool:

[Arakune]

My first thought is that this kind of war will be almost unwinnable without weapons of mass destruction (nuclear or otherwise). If each side has hundreds of planets, then I feel that conventional warfare (except in space) wouldn't work. There would simply be too much land to conquer, and not enough time to do it. This kind of war could go on for millennia without any side achieving victory.

Warhammer 40000?
.
.
.

Let war BEGIN!

[Don Julio Anejo]

I'm an engineering major. The details of history escape me. :smallcool:
I'm a psychology/biochem major :smalltongue: I just happen to read a bunch of crap I don't really need and no-one cares about.

[PersonMan]

The first thing we learn from General MacArthur is that it is impractical to take over every single island (system). Island hopping is the way to go.

Secondly, never get involved in a land war in Asia. If both sides can through however many machines they want at whatever, you are dumping them into a black hole.

US Grant only fought a war of attrition because he knew the South couldn't just build more soldiers. Accepting losses made sense tactically. If neither side loses anything, why even bother?

Take out the droid control ship. If I were in such a conflict, 90% of my resources would go into communications - disrupting or controlling the enemy machines. Even really, really smart machines are only as smart as you make them, and only know what you tell them.

The pen is mightier than the sword. While the general population may or may not be accessible, and if the conflict has continued long enough, nobody really wants to continue it except the big wigs. Incite rebellion and unrest in the opposing population and let them handle it. This worked for Germany to get Russia out of WWI (they backed Lenin and he took over Russia to form the USSR).

In short, I would never throw good resources after bad. Hit them where it hurts: strategic locations, communications, and propaganda.

1: The machine units are either not worth the resources to disable/mess with using communications, or need large amounts of data/resources to "crack"
2: The problem with that is that only one faction actually has a real "population". The other factions are either machines, fully devoted to fighting to survive, or don't have a population other than soldiers.

EDIT: Nice, first thread to page 2.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Something else I realized... Use robots for space battles! Doesn't matter if they suck crap compared to humans. They're easily expandable. You can make as many as you want and keep them coming - it only takes a few seconds to upload an AI into a chip. It takes decades to grow and train a human.

At the very least use them to do the most damage to the enemy, suicide when they're out of ammo and mop up with your good, high-quality, well trained human fleet.

PS: oh, didn't see the last post. I thought that all three sides have a bunch of people and they just use machines to a different extent.

PPS: are all the machines sentient to the point they could be considered individual "living" things or is it just a bunch of toasters that can kill things?

[PersonMan]

History had demonstrated that people living along the borders actually fight back more than people in the core cities. Because people along the borders usually have something to fight for (such as their freedom if it's a newly established colony) or because they're used to fighting back, be it from major powers or pirates/raiders. They may fight back if only for the hell of it unless the invading side actually treats them much, MUCH better than the side they belong to.

While people living in the cities (in this case - core planets) are used to living a dull and unexciting life and usually have something to live for, such as the accumulation of material wealth (sorry, saw Michael Moore's Capitalism today :smalltongue:) and probably won't fight back risking their skins if they know their life won't change too much save for a different flag at the local city hall. Unless you really, REALLY piss them off.

The problem is that there's usually many more of them so even a few unhappy souls could cause just as much trouble as the entire population of a border planet.

PS: a football stadium of soldier's actually isn't that big by space standards. I thought you meant something along the lines of a ship a few kilometers big, filled to the brink with soldiers and materiel. But even then, IMO go for something smaller unless it's easy to shield the soldiers. By that time I'm pretty sure there will be weapons the size of a stinger missile that can take out half that ship. Even if you kill the guy using it afterwards.

@madtinker: The Japanese were the first actually, in 1904-05. It just worked out better for the Germans in 1917.

1: The border world governments are independent of the invaders/defenders. Conquest just changes who's name is on the tax shipment, and whose soldiers come in to get some food.
2: The capitol planets are the ones that would probably fight back the most due intense patriotism and the like.
PS: I did mean that. And no, small weapons don't have the ability to do that...Mostly because these ships have the shields of large combat ships, making them all but indestructible for ground forces. And before you ask, no, most ships can hardly move in atmospheres. Also, assume that most technology has gone into transportation and space combat. Ground warfare isn't too much different than today-except with hundreds of times as many soldiers/equipment.

[PersonMan]

Something else I realized... Use robots for space battles! Doesn't matter if they suck crap compared to humans. They're easily expandable. You can make as many as you want and keep them coming - it only takes a few seconds to upload an AI into a chip. It takes decades to grow and train a human.

At the very least use them to do the most damage to the enemy, suicide when they're out of ammo and mop up with your good, high-quality, well trained human fleet.

PS: oh, didn't see the last post. I thought that all three sides have a bunch of people and they just use machines to a different extent.

PPS: are all the machines sentient to the point they could be considered individual "living" things or is it just a bunch of toasters that can kill things?

1: Machines cost money too, you know. It may be easy to "train" them, but building them isn't as easy.
PS: Well, sort of.
PPS: Depends. There are sentient toasters and huge computers that do nothing but toast toast...er, starships.

[madtinker]

1: The machine units are either not worth the resources to disable/mess with using communications, or need large amounts of data/resources to "crack"
2: The problem with that is that only one faction actually has a real "population". The other factions are either machines, fully devoted to fighting to survive, or don't have a population other than soldiers.

But if you crack the right ones, suddenly you have infiltrated the command center. Additionally, if they must receive remote orders, jamming communications is really, really easy.

New thought; machines, like people, require energy. What are they using for batteries?

They buy chips from somewhere. Program the chips with a white rabbit command and see what happens. There are so many things to do other than blast away at each other. Blasting is so inefficient.

[PersonMan]

But if you crack the right ones, suddenly you have infiltrated the command center. Additionally, if they must receive remote orders, jamming communications is really, really easy.

New thought; machines, like people, require energy. What are they using for batteries?

They buy chips from somewhere. Program the chips with a white rabbit command and see what happens. There are so many things to do other than blast away at each other. Blasting is so inefficient.

1: Enemy command center ones are big computers. They're probably big enough to have rooms of anti-hackers fighting your every move.

2: You're right. Probably solar energy. Either that or magic science we can't hope to understand.

3: These people are in control of dozens of systems. They build just about all of their own stuff.

[_Zoot_]

They're effectively evenly matches.

One side uses sheer numbers but weak, inexpensive units.

Another is more rounded out.

And the third uses a small number of powerful, expensive units.

Ok, i swear to God that you are reading my mind!!! That is exactly what im have in my idea!!! :smalltongue:

[madtinker]

Use nuclear weapons but make it look like the other guy did it so the observers go after them. But do it right so they don't get wise.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Use nuclear weapons but make it look like the other guy did it so the observers go after them. But do it right so they don't get wise.
You'd pretty much have to bomb your own planet during an enemy attack for that.

@below: but... but.. isn't antimatter the most overused cliche in sci-fi?

[madtinker]

1: Enemy command center ones are big computers. They're probably big enough to have rooms of anti-hackers fighting your every move.

2: You're right. Probably solar energy. Either that or magic science we can't hope to understand.

3: These people are in control of dozens of systems. They build just about all of their own stuff.

Solar energy isn't that efficient. Direct conversion from mass to energy would be nice.

[PersonMan]

Ok, i swear to God that you are reading my mind!!! That is edsactly what im have in my idea!!!

Meh. Those are pretty archetypical.

The rounded out one, the AKF(Allied Kid Forces-A new name wouldn't "feel" right to me, and I came up with this at about 10) is mostly human.

The one using inexpensive swarms is an insectoid group based loosely off the invid. To make units, they put small seeds into clumps of metal, and release them once they mature.

[madtinker]

You'd pretty much have to bomb your own planet during an enemy attack for that.

One planet out of hundreds won't make a big difference. Pick one you don't like.

[PersonMan]

You'd pretty much have to bomb your own planet during an enemy attack for that.

Yep/yes.

And these guys basically sit around and find new ways to watch stuff. Chances are they will see you. Also, even now most radioactive material can be traced back to a source, and trade between sides is basically unheard of.

[madtinker]

Yep/yes.

And these guys basically sit around and find new ways to watch stuff. Chances are they will see you. Also, even now most radioactive material can be traced back to a source, and trade between sides is basically unheard of.

Like I said. Just do a really good job. Or bribe someone. That usually works. Fight to win, don't fight by the rules.

[PersonMan]

One planet out of hundreds won't make a big difference. Pick one you don't like.

Morale will quite possibly decline. Besides, the purification(or whatever) of (uranium? whatever you make the nuclear part of the nuke with) needs special facilities, if I remember. Unless you are insanely good at hiding stuff, chances are someone will report you.

[Don Julio Anejo]

One planet out of hundreds won't make a big difference. Pick one you don't like.
Even if you succeed, a single whistleblower on your side is enough to suddenly have not only the observers but everyone else pissed off at you.

[PersonMan]

Like I said. Just do a really good job. Or bribe someone. That usually works. Fight to win, don't fight by the rules.

You could maybe bribe some Observer soldiers, but not the Observers themselves. Imagine a group of people with special powers, trained from birth for loyalty and, most importantly, awareness. People trained for making new technology who spend their lives sitting around making better stealth technology...And the plot.

[madtinker]

Morale will quite possibly decline. Besides, the purification(or whatever) of (uranium? whatever you make the nuclear part of the nuke with) needs special facilities, if I remember. Unless you are insanely good at hiding stuff, chances are someone will report you.

Uranium, plutonium, etc. is enriched. But there are legitimate reasons to build such facilities, so why not have one. If its the question of winning a war that is otherwise unwinnable for all concerned, just do it. If it doesn't work and they find you out, just surrender to the Observers and they probably won't destroy your entire population.

Or, depending on their demands, surrender. The war is pointless.

[PersonMan]

Even if you succeed, a single whistleblower on your side is enough to suddenly have not only the observers but everyone else pissed off at you.

Exactly. And it is almost certain someone will notice your resource gap, and find an inconstancy...

[madtinker]

You could maybe bribe some Observer soldiers, but not the Observers themselves. Imagine a group of people with special powers, trained from birth for loyalty and, most importantly, awareness. People trained for making new technology who spend their lives sitting around making better stealth technology...And the plot.

I meant bribe the enemy to push the big red button, or give you the key, or whatever. This war has gone on quite a long time, and has so many people involved, eventually someone will screw up. One person, let alone billions, can not be perfect.

[PersonMan]

Uranium, plutonium, etc. is enriched. But there are legitimate reasons to build such facilities, so why not have one. If its the question of winning a war that is otherwise unwinnable for all concerned, just do it. If it doesn't work and they find you out, just surrender to the Observers and they probably won't destroy your entire population.

Or, depending on their demands, surrender. The war is pointless.

I'm pretty sure there are different facilities for different enrichment purposes...Couldn't people tell Iran was building such facilities? I don't remember. Also, as you said, a single planet won't make much of a difference. Even if you flawlessly executed everything, but someone told the Observers...Well, you would die, and they'd probably kill everyone involved, for good measure.

[_Zoot_]

I agree, it's not worth bringing in the observers just to nuke a few planets that you can just throw lives ( or Robot lives) in to anyway.

[PersonMan]

I meant bribe the enemy to push the big red button, or give you the key, or whatever. This war has gone on quite a long time, and has so many people involved, eventually someone will screw up. One person, let alone billions, can not be perfect.

Alright, then. Now, who would effectively doom themselves, hundreds of soldiers, (probably) their friends, and quite possibly their entire civilization?

Besides, how would you contact them? Unless you hacked into someone's private comm channel(Very difficult by itself) all communications would be monitored and reports submitted to officials, etc.

[madtinker]

Or even more, this sounds like the war Orwell describes in 1984. The leaders want the war because it consumes labor, keeping people subservient and docile. So ending the war actually helps no one. Keep it going, I mean, a few people die here and there, but who cares, right?

[madtinker]

Alright, then. Now, who would effectively doom themselves, hundreds of soldiers, (probably) their friends, and quite possibly their entire civilization?

Besides, how would you contact them? Unless you hacked into someone's private comm channel(Very difficult by itself) all communications would be monitored and reports submitted to officials, etc.

Given enough time, space, and money, crap happens. :smallamused:

[PersonMan]

Or even more, this sounds like the war Orwell describes in 1984. The leaders want the war because it consumes labor, keeping people subservient and docile. So ending the war actually helps no one. Keep it going, I mean, a few people die here and there, but who cares, right?

Meh. Could be. Then again, chances are that the economies of all factions have shifted so much into manufacturing war equipment and the like that ending the war would break everyone's economies.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Given enough time, space, and money, crap happens. :smallamused:
Everyone would have to be the same race for that. You can bribe someone away by promising them, say, a cushy position as a governor of a cute agrarian planet in your empire. What are you going to promise to a bug or a robot to make them doom themselves, their family and friends (if these terms can be applied to their societies), their hive and everything else they stand for?

PS: yep, I also thought of Orwell..

PPS: question: is someone going to win the war through the force of plot?

[PersonMan]

Given enough time, space, and money, crap happens. :smallamused:

True...But once again, the Observers' entire existence is based around watching everthying at all times. And the plot demands that such things don't happen.

[madtinker]

So it doesn't make sense to let the war end anymore...

Bottom line is, you created this universe, you can let it end any way you want. Say someone ends it some way. It doesn't have to be a plausible way, it just has to sound plausible. If it never ends, at least let people do interesting this on there way to failure.

[PersonMan]

Everyone would have to be the same race for that. You can bribe someone away by promising them, say, a cushy position as a governor of a cute agrarian planet in your empire. What are you going to promise to a bug or a robot to make them doom themselves, their family and friends (if these terms can be applied to their societies), their hive and everything else they stand for?

PS: yep, I also thought of Orwell..

PPS: question: is someone going to win the war through the force of plot?

Yes/yep.

PPS: Probably not, since I amuse myself with...well, it's like watching a show and controlling everything that happens. This universe morphed out of...about five years of doing this during down times, good songs, car rides and boring classes. If someone won, what would I do with my time?

[madtinker]

Everyone would have to be the same race for that. You can bribe someone away by promising them, say, a cushy position as a governor of a cute agrarian planet in your empire. What are you going to promise to a bug or a robot to make them doom themselves, their family and friends (if these terms can be applied to their societies), their hive and everything else they stand for?

PS: yep, I also thought of Orwell..

PPS: question: is someone going to win the war through the force of plot?

To the bug: sugar. And minions.

To the robot: batteries. And a laser gun arm.

[PersonMan]

So it doesn't make sense to let the war end anymore...

Bottom line is, you created this universe, you can let it end any way you want. Say someone ends it some way. It doesn't have to be a plausible way, it just has to sound plausible. If it never ends, at least let people do interesting this on there way to failure.

Yep. Most recent event is a highly-advanced civilization that has sent a scout ship the size of a small star to investigate the galaxy.

PS: 'Advanced technology'='shut up and stop wondering how such a ship/weapon/whatever doesn't suck in everything/blow up/work/not not work'

[PersonMan]

To the bug: sugar. And minions.

To the robot: batteries. And a laser gun arm.

From the bug: Insectoid, not insects. They live on cubes of concentrated energy. Getting one to desert is like getting a human to...to...well..erm..uh...[something that can't happen due to hard-wired mental programming]

From the robot: Either mindless or created just to kill you intelligently. Or living a life of obscenely awesome luxury. And tactical genius.

[_Zoot_]

You know, more and more this is reminding me of WH40k.....

Ok, so without the super weapons :smallwink:

[PersonMan]

You know, more and more this is reminding me of WH40k.....

Ok, so without the super weapons :smallwink:

You mean the series with the psychic mind-people, god-emperor guy, chaos gods and weird super-soldiers? I never really understood that series, and this idea started when I was around ten. All I know is that the WH40k universe is like a room where everyone is on fire, some more than others.

[_Zoot_]

You mean the series with the psychic mind-people, god-emperor guy, chaos gods and weird super-soldiers? I never really understood that series, and this idea started when I was around ten. All I know is that the WH40k universe is like a room where everyone is on fire, some more than others.

The heck you don't understand the series, that summarizes it perfectly! :smallbiggrin:

And next question, do the robots look human/ have about the same ability's as a human?

[PersonMan]

The heck you don't understand the series, that summarizes it perfectly! :smallbiggrin:

And next question, do the robots look human/ have about the same ability's as a human?

Ability's what? Sorry, it's just been annoying me that people are doing that. You mean 'abilities', right?

And it depends. The most current (shock trooper)versions are light gray, are vaguely humanoid, carry basic energy weapons and can't think. They also can't see or hear very well, and are built for mass combat.

Others are more/less human. It depends on their purpose, and my mood when I come up with their design.

[_Zoot_]

Ability's what? Sorry, it's just been annoying me that people are doing that. You mean 'abilities', right?

And it depends. The most current (shock trooper)versions are light gray, are vaguely humanoid, carry basic energy weapons and can't think. They also can't see or hear very well, and are built for mass combat.

Others are more/less human. It depends on their purpose, and my mood when I come up with their design.

Right, sorry about the spelling, im one of the worlds worst spellers.

And i was asking because it would be hard for a force that hasn't humanoid to control a human population, the abilities was just so i knew what there would be able to do in situations were they were not facing massed opponents, like guerrilla war fair (not that it happens very often).

[PersonMan]

Right, sorry about the spelling, im one of the worlds worst spellers.

And i was asking because it would be hard for a force that hasn't humanoid to control a human population, the abilities was just so i knew what there would be able to do in situations were they were not facing massed opponents, like guerrilla war fair (not that it happens very often).

Don't worry. I've just been seeing that a lot lately.

And they basically just get pointed at stuff and shoot it. More advanced machines are used posts that require thinking, or anything more than...well, pointing and shooting.

[Yoren]

I'm curious why you're operating under the assumption that accurate orbital bombardment is impossible. Your ships are presumably hitting fairly precise coordinates when they jump across dozens or even hundreds of light years and you have autonomous machine soldiers but you can't hit a house sized object from space? If I recall correctly the US military was experimenting with a "Rod from God" orbital weapon a while back.

If you haven't done so already I would also recommend reading, Starship Troopers, Ender's Game, and the Commonwealth Saga for additional ideas. Mass Effect might also give you some inspiration.

[PersonMan]

I'm curious why you're operating under the assumption that accurate orbital bombardment is impossible. Your ships are presumably hitting fairly precise coordinates when they jump across dozens or even hundreds of light years and you have autonomous machine soldiers but you can't hit a house sized object from space? If I recall correctly the US military was experimenting with a "Rod from God" orbital weapon a while back.

If you haven't done so already I would also recommend reading, Starship Troopers, Ender's Game, and the Commonwealth Saga for additional ideas. Mass Effect might also give you some inspiration.

Not impossible, just...not really worth it. Most ships use energy weapons, which, for whatever reason, lose power the farther they fire. So it's difficult to find a balance between the beam failing in the atmosphere, and possibly destroying mineral resources.

It also makes nice, dramatic mass ground combat scenes a lot less plausible.

[Yoren]

So that does that nix groundbased defense systems? Missiles? Bombs?

[Coidzor]

So the ships have to be right up on one another for their weapons to have any effectiveness then?

[PersonMan]

So that does that nix groundbased defense systems? Missiles? Bombs?

Against aircaft, they exist, but weaponry that can get through the atmosphere is relatively expensive, and most ships have shields strong enough to easily take ground-based missile strikes.

How you bomb something outside the atmosphere from the ground is beyond me.

[PersonMan]

So the ships have to be right up on one another for their weapons to have any effectiveness then?

No, but a mile or so of atmosphere will make the attack ineffective or useless. In vacuum the range is much higher, due to a lack of...erm...electric bleed. Yes, electric bleed.

[Don Julio Anejo]

No, but a mile or so of atmosphere will make the attack ineffective or useless. In vacuum the range is much higher, due to a lack of...erm...electric bleed. Yes, electric bleed.
Ehm, there's an actual name for it :tongue: It's called light refraction. Basically light changing direction as it crosses the border of two mediums with different densities (like air and water, or even hot air and cold air).

[PersonMan]

Ehm, there's an actual name for it :tongue: It's called light refraction. Basically light changing direction as it crosses the border of two mediums with different densities (like air and water, or even hot air and cold air).

...Of course! I knew that...I was just...er...testing you. Yes! To see if you were...um...paying attention.

[Yoren]

I was assuming you bomb from the orbiting ships down onto the planet.

So a ship has a shield that's strong enough to laugh off an ICBM sized missile abut takes damage from some random beam weapon? Can you put these super shields up around the planet and just laugh as the attacking force bashes its head uselessly against it?

[Don Julio Anejo]

Imo though, orbital weapons would still be strong and accurate enough to hit tank-sized targets. That is, if your world was following the laws of physics :P

It's possible to make them now actually, given a power source. It's an engineering problem, not one of technological level.

[PersonMan]

I was assuming you bomb from the orbiting ships down onto the planet.

So a ship has a shield that's strong enough to laugh off an ICBM sized missile abut takes damage from some random beam weapon? Can you put these super shields up around the planet and just laugh as the attacking force bashes its head uselessly against it?

Could be done, I guess. You'd need missiles to bomb accurately, though.

And the starship weapons are far more powerful than most of what we have. Which is why one of the problems with orbital bombardment is destroying mineral resources.

Yes, but you'd need several huge(and expensive) shield generators spread throughout the planet, and an even larger amount of energy to power them.

[PersonMan]

Imo though, orbital weapons would still be strong and accurate enough to hit tank-sized targets. That is, if your world was following the laws of physics :P

It's possible to make them now actually, given a power source. It's an engineering problem, not one of technological level.

Strong and accurate enough, yes. It's just that a level of adjustment is needed before one can just fire the weapons down, unless you want to turn the area into a small crater.

[Coidzor]

Could be done, I guess. You'd need missiles to bomb accurately, though.

And the starship weapons are far more powerful than most of what we have. Which is why one of the problems with orbital bombardment is destroying mineral resources.

No, not really. Good image capture and targeting software and simple ballistics can be very effective and accurate, especially given the tech level you're postulating.

And unless the cities are built on top of the mineral resources (unlikely), then destroying the population centers and military bases via orbital bombardment is unlikely to impact the mineral resources unless they either have to obliterate half a continent with a single shot or not fire at all.


Against aircaft, they exist, but weaponry that can get through the atmosphere is relatively expensive, and most ships have shields strong enough to easily take ground-based missile strikes.

How you bomb something outside the atmosphere from the ground is beyond me.

Planets can mount much larger armaments and there are less of them than there are ships. Certain weapons wouldn't work due to how they'd interact with atmosphere and gravity wells, of course, but a planetary network of missile silos isn't that far fetched.

As to bombing stuff outside the atmosphere from the ground, look at what we did to the moon. :smallwink:

Given this tech level, it's damned far-fetched that it's a bother for them to have rockets that can achieve escape velocity.

[Yoren]

Could be done, I guess. You'd need missiles to bomb accurately, though.

Not sure what you mean by this. Bombs and missiles are totally different weapon systems and right now we have GPS guided bombs that can hit within several feet of the intended target when dropped from a fair altitude.


And the starship weapons are far more powerful than most of what we have. Which is why one of the problems with orbital bombardment is destroying mineral resources. Yes, but you'd need several huge(and expensive) shield generators spread throughout the planet, and an even larger amount of energy to power them.

If everyone is so scared of destroying mineral resources then sending tanks and planes and what not to trample over everything seems to be a very bad idea. Also if the weapons are so extremely powerful why are nukes scary enough to be banned? One of those Rods from God I mentioned earlier (essentially a 20 foot long by 1 foot in diameter tungsten rod) dropped from orbit can hit with roughly the force of a nuke. Its could also be targeted using GPS.

[PersonMan]

Not sure what you mean by this. Bombs and missiles are totally different weapon systems and right now we have GPS guided bombs that can hit within several feet of the intended target when dropped from a fair altitude.



If everyone is so scared of destroying mineral resources then sending tanks and planes and what not to trample over everything seems to be a very bad idea. Also if the weapons are so extremely powerful why are nukes scary enough to be banned? One of those Rods from God I mentioned earlier (essentially a 20 foot long by 1 foot in diameter tungsten rod) dropped from orbit can hit with roughly the force of a nuke. Its could also be targeted using GPS.

I'm thinking of high-altitude winds, like the Jet Stream, pulling things off target.

Nukes are bad due primarily to fallout. A few nukes can easily kill most life on a planet and possibly irradiate mineral resources.

A 'Rod from God' could be used, I guess.

[PersonMan]

No, not really. Good image capture and targeting software and simple ballistics can be very effective and accurate, especially given the tech level you're postulating.

And unless the cities are built on top of the mineral resources (unlikely), then destroying the population centers and military bases via orbital bombardment is unlikely to impact the mineral resources unless they either have to obliterate half a continent with a single shot or not fire at all.



Planets can mount much larger armaments and there are less of them than there are ships. Certain weapons wouldn't work due to how they'd interact with atmosphere and gravity wells, of course, but a planetary network of missile silos isn't that far fetched.

As to bombing stuff outside the atmosphere from the ground, look at what we did to the moon. :smallwink:

Given this tech level, it's damned far-fetched that it's a bother for them to have rockets that can achieve escape velocity.


Maybe. But the primary thing wrong with this is that most larger ships have the shields to resist land-based missile attacks, or have magnetic shielding. Magnetic shielding is the use of a magnetic field to hold a screen of small metal spheres a certain distance from the ship, causing missiles and the like to explode against them, rather than the ship

Meh. We had a remote-controlled object throw a piece of metal onto the moon. I was thinking more along the lines of using a railgun to fire a bomb into orbit.

[Mercenary Pen]

Okay, suggestion for improved missile technology for you...

Basically, turn each missile into a capacitor that gets charged up with the same stuff that goes into your beam weapons, then lob that at the target. Should have rather more firepower, though it'll require heavy charging facilities (and thus can't be done with shoulder-launched and small vehicle missiles).

[PersonMan]

Okay, suggestion for improved missile technology for you...

Basically, turn each missile into a capacitor that gets charged up with the same stuff that goes into your beam weapons, then lob that at the target. Should have rather more firepower, though it'll require heavy charging facilities (and thus can't be done with shoulder-launched and small vehicle missiles).

I'm not quite sure I get what you're saying. The beam weapons are lasers, for the most part. How would you charge this into a warhead/missile?

[Yoren]

Maybe. But the primary thing wrong with this is that most larger ships have the shields to resist land-based missile attacks, or have magnetic shielding. Magnetic shielding is the use of a magnetic field to hold a screen of small metal spheres a certain distance from the ship, causing missiles and the like to explode against them, rather than the ship

Meh. We had a remote-controlled object throw a piece of metal onto the moon. I was thinking more along the lines of using a railgun to fire a bomb into orbit.

You can very easily set the missiles so that they don't explode until they're get past the screen - think bunker buster weapons.

How do you fire out from behind the screen?

Currently the navy is experimenting with rail gun tech and the scientists say that a rail gun mounted on a destroyer could hit a 5 meter wide target from 230(ish) miles away.
http://gizmodo.com/351467/navy-rail-gun-test-destroys-everything-it-touches-at-5640-mph

[PersonMan]

You can very easily set the missiles so that they don't explode until they're get past the screen - think bunker buster weapons.

How do you fire out from behind the screen?

Currently the navy is experimenting with rail gun tech and the scientists say that a rail gun mounted on a destroyer could hit a 5 meter wide target from 230(ish) miles away.
http://gizmodo.com/351467/navy-rail-gun-test-destroys-everything-it-touches-at-5640-mph

Probably manipulate the magnetic field to allow your fire to pass through, then bring it back together.

See, another reason I'm limiting the technology a bit is because I don't just want a few dozen ships blowing up eachother and then easily obliterating any and all land units, which can also destroy them. I've set up a scene over the years, and want to at least try to stay true to it.

[Mercenary Pen]

I'm not quite sure I get what you're saying. The beam weapons are lasers, for the most part. How would you charge this into a warhead/missile?

Well, this was an idea I came up with for something of mine (using plasma weapons as the main form of energy weapon- because lasers weren't deadly enough), and it does rely heavily on future-physics... but basically, once you've charged it, you set it to an impact-based 'detonation' or a proximity fuse, and it gives you a burst of energy comparable with that of your beam weapons right where you want it.

These also give you the advantage of not having massive amounts of destruction the moment someone gets a lucky hit on your missile storage.


I'll readily admit the whole system relies entirely on more nebulous weaponry like plasma weapons, but it'll give your ground forces a boost, because as things stand, you've made it a little too impossible for them to prevent the troop-ships from landing.

[PersonMan]

Well, this was an idea I came up with for something of mine (using plasma weapons as the main form of energy weapon- because lasers weren't deadly enough), and it does rely heavily on future-physics... but basically, once you've charged it, you set it to an impact-based 'detonation' or a proximity fuse, and it gives you a burst of energy comparable with that of your beam weapons right where you want it.

These also give you the advantage of not having massive amounts of destruction the moment someone gets a lucky hit on your missile storage.


I'll readily admit the whole system relies entirely on more nebulous weaponry like plasma weapons, but it'll give your ground forces a boost, because as things stand, you've made it a little too impossible for them to prevent the troop-ships from landing.

True...but this is how I justify the satisfyingly huge and complicated fortifications of every planet.

Makes sense...But assuming thick hulls and energy shields, weapons like that would probably either be used in bursts to capitalize on the time between shield regeneration, or be used primarily against smaller ships.

EDIT: Nice. Page 4.

[Yoren]

So are you looking more for WH40k style combat with hover tanks/power armored infantry/mechs etc and very little input from air and space power?

I can roll with that, but it just seemed like in your initial post you seemed to be focusing on space warfare.

One way to reduce space power is to make city-sized shielding units fairly widespread. This would prevent the assaulting faction from vaporizing everything from orbit and force them to land infantry and armor on the planet to take cities, military bases and other strategic locals (kinda like Empire Strikes Back on Hoth). It would produce a lot of urban warfare which may or may not jive with your vision.

[PersonMan]

So are you looking more for WH40k style combat with hover tanks/power armored infantry/mechs etc and very little input from air and space power?

I can roll with that, but it just seemed like in your initial post you seemed to be focusing on space warfare.

One way to reduce space power is to make city-sized shielding units fairly widespread. This would prevent the assaulting faction from vaporizing everything from orbit and force them to land infantry and armor on the planet to take cities, military bases and other strategic locals. It would produce a lot of urban and close quarters warfare which may or may not jive with your vision.

I don't know what WH40K style is. But...possibly. Infantry and the like will still play a role, especially in urban combat, but power armor/mechs won't be very common. It'll mostly just be dozens of tanks and other vehicles.

I want space warfare to be very important, as control of the space around a planet allows one to land troops, supplies, etc. But ground combat to be necessary, rather than ships just barraging planets into submission. What you've said makes sense, and I think that I can work these into the setting along with another city-sized super-weapons-esque thing.

[Mercenary Pen]

Another point, I think you're thinking a bit big for your landing ships at stadium size for one reason...

They need flat space to land on. This is a fundamental requirement of landing anything large from the sky, and has not been done away with, even by the advent of helicopters and VTOL/STOVL jet aircraft. With ships the size of sports stadiums, terrain can easily be broken up just sufficiently to make landing inconvenient within any proximity of a strategic target. For example, one side might place concrete block landing barriers- with razor wire stretched between them, to create a buffer zone between enemy ground forces and an important factory, base or city.

Alternatively, you lure them onto a carefully prepared landing site at one of your bases, then catch them in an ambush- firing whatever ground weapons you have into the transport from whatever foxhole you've chosen the moment the ramps go down (this assumes of course you have managed to stop them bombing your bunkers and foxholes out of existence before they landed the troops).

[hamishspence]

Even in a vacuum, lasers spead out. Lets say you're on the moon and fire a beam at a target in low Earth orbit. By the time the beam reaches the target, it will be more like a searchlight- spread out, lower energy density.

At thousand to million km ranges or more, I suspect projectiles are more likely.

Possibly guided, possibly explosive, but with enough speed on the projectile, explosives become a bit superfluous.

[PersonMan]

Another point, I think you're thinking a bit big for your landing ships at stadium size for one reason...

They need flat space to land on. This is a fundamental requirement of landing anything large from the sky, and has not been done away with, even by the advent of helicopters and VTOL/STOVL jet aircraft. With ships the size of sports stadiums, terrain can easily be broken up just sufficiently to make landing inconvenient within any proximity of a strategic target. For example, one side might place concrete block landing barriers- with razor wire stretched between them, to create a buffer zone between enemy ground forces and an important factory, base or city.

Alternatively, you lure them onto a carefully prepared landing site at one of your bases, then catch them in an ambush- firing whatever ground weapons you have into the transport from whatever foxhole you've chosen the moment the ramps go down (this assumes of course you have managed to stop them bombing your bunkers and foxholes out of existence before they landed the troops).

I never said the ships actually landed, did I? I was thinking more along the lines of a single giant ship finding several small landing zones sanitized by bomber/fighter groups beforehand, dropping off a smaller transport to prepare a base, and then do the same thing several more times. Air support keeps the enemy pinned down as well as they can during this phase.

[PersonMan]

Even in a vacuum, lasers spead out. Lets say you're on the moon and fire a beam at a target in low Earth orbit. By the time the beam reaches the target, it will be more like a searchlight- spread out, lower energy density.

At thousand to million km ranges or more, I suspect projectiles are more likely.

Possibly guided, possibly explosive, but with enough speed on the projectile, explosives become a bit superfluous.

Yes, this is true. However, most ship-to-ship combat occurs relatively close-usually the ships are no more than a few hundred kilometers apart.

[Mercenary Pen]

I never said the ships actually landed, did I? I was thinking more along the lines of a single giant ship finding several small landing zones sanitized by bomber/fighter groups beforehand, dropping off a smaller transport to prepare a base, and then do the same thing several more times. Air support keeps the enemy pinned down as well as they can during this phase.

And at the same time, you're concerned with energy efficiency and economic use of fuel and resources elsewhere...

These stadium-sized ships are gonna have upwards of 2000 tons of tanks, munitions etc. aboard, and from experience with aircraft like the Harrier jump-jet, hovering expends a lot more energy than straight-line flight. Hovering with that sort of payload is gonna be prohibitively wasteful of fuel and/or reactor power in my opinion, placing massive strain on the engines as well as trying to generate shields throughout...

Also, generating energy shields in atmosphere I would imagine to have the same potential for energy dissipation as the use of energy weapons in atmosphere... but with increased burden upon the power source used, simply because you're trying to compensate for that energy dissipation all the time.

[quicker_comment]

I think that in as high-power a setting as this, you should not be using literal nuclear weapons as the "big scary thing that we can't use".

A nuclear weapon essentially just creates a very big explosion and then makes an area of a planet hazardous to humans for an amount of time. With our current level of technology, a missile carrying such a weapon is not easy to defend against. This makes it scary to us, because we know that these things start flying, there are probably enough warheads around to eliminate all human life on Earth.

However, on a galactic scale, this doesn't really work. As a sci-fi author, you can easily scale up the explosion to the point where it would essentially destroy an entire planet, but it's still not any more scary than any number of other planetkillers. There's the fallout part, but when a weapon can obliterate an entire planet, it doesn't really matter that it also would have made that planet uninhabitable, had there still been a planet. If you still plan to use missiles, there's now a lot more empty space between the launch point and the target, which you can use to destroy the missile, and where the missile can be more or less safely detonated.

I think what you need is just a class of weapons or ways to wage war, well-known, but not actively used by anyone for fear of "mutually assured destruction". In our history, this has been nuclear weapons. In a science fiction story set far into the future it should be something else. In both cases, on a story level, the weapon is not the interesting part, but rather the effect it has on the conflict. Suggestions:

Planet- or system-killer strategies and weapons in general. It is taboo to destroy all life on a planet (or a larger unit of habitation) and make it uninhabitable (or just gone) in a single sweep. Whether this is done by means of a relativistic kill vehicle, making a sun go nova, dropping a really big bomb, or even just sending in genocidal ground troops ordered to give a planet some sort of high-tech Carthage treatment, does not matter. Habitable planets in reasonable range are considered a finite resource. Even though the technology is there, no one wants to escalate the conflict to the point where they're very rapidly destroying the things they're fighting over.
Large-scale biological weapons. An engineered disease strikes at exactly the scale relevant to humans -- it targets an entire society. If it is very contagious, has a long sleeper stage, and is extremely hard to detect for someone not aware of its existence, it could potentially spread to an entire civilization before entering its lethal stage. Even though the societies may be more spread out than those on Earth, as long as somewhere there's a chain of human interaction without protective suits, the weapon will simply expand to match the size of the targeted society. One "successful" application of such a weapon would destroy one side of the conflict. When the odds are relatively even, this is a gamble none of the sides want to take, so they have agreed that research into these weapons is forbidden.
"Literal" doomsday devices. Weapons that are known to be powerful enough to destroy all traces of humanity, including whoever pulls the trigger. These would only ever be activated by the losing side in a war, which means that the winning side has to be careful not to go too far. For the exact means, go wild with inventing stuff (perhaps the creation of a gigantic black hole at a well-chosen point?). It doesn't matter a lot, because if this technology is ever activated, the book/campaign/game just ends in a rather unsatisfying fashion -- so it probably shouldn't be done. The interesting part is the "Dr. Strangelove"-style climate that arises from this being somehow possible.

If you want the story to be largely about people shooting each other with guns, rather than politics, the ban on these weapons should be stable and unbroken. Having all-powerful "Observers" is one way to achieve this. However, I think it'd still be a good thing if the class of banned weapons made some sense.

[PersonMan]

And at the same time, you're concerned with energy efficiency and economic use of fuel and resources elsewhere...

These stadium-sized ships are gonna have upwards of 2000 tons of tanks, munitions etc. aboard, and from experience with aircraft like the Harrier jump-jet, hovering expends a lot more energy than straight-line flight. Hovering with that sort of payload is gonna be prohibitively wasteful of fuel and/or reactor power in my opinion, placing massive strain on the engines as well as trying to generate shields throughout...

Also, generating energy shields in atmosphere I would imagine to have the same potential for energy dissipation as the use of energy weapons in atmosphere... but with increased burden upon the power source used, simply because you're trying to compensate for that energy dissipation all the time.

Hmm...That's true. The starships will probably go down into low orbit and drop off a group of smaller ships designed to fly inside of an atmosphere, which then descend and drop off special drop-pod-esque things which then deploy into small starter bases.

That could be used, but once again you'd need an immense amount of power to generate such a field, and specialized anti-shield weapons will allow small ships to breach the field, possibly to sneak in a small commando group to sabotage/destroy the reactors...Or the starships could barrage a small area and then send ships through, etc.

[PersonMan]

I think that in as high-power a setting as this, you should not be using literal nuclear weapons as the "big scary thing that we can't use".

A nuclear weapon essentially just creates a very big explosion and then makes an area of a planet hazardous to humans for an amount of time. With our current level of technology, a missile carrying such a weapon is not easy to defend against. This makes it scary to us, because we know that these things start flying, there are probably enough warheads around to eliminate all human life on Earth.

However, on a galactic scale, this doesn't really work. As a sci-fi author, you can easily scale up the explosion to the point where it would essentially destroy an entire planet, but it's still not any more scary than any number of other planetkillers. There's the fallout part, but when a weapon can obliterate an entire planet, it doesn't really matter that it also would have made that planet uninhabitable, had there still been a planet. If you still plan to use missiles, there's now a lot more empty space between the launch point and the target, which you can use to destroy the missile, and where the missile can be more or less safely detonated.

I think what you need is just a class of weapons or ways to wage war, well-known, but not actively used by anyone for fear of "mutually assured destruction". In our history, this has been nuclear weapons. In a science fiction story set far into the future it should be something else. In both cases, on a story level, the weapon is not the interesting part, but rather the effect it has on the conflict. Suggestions:

Planet- or system-killer strategies and weapons in general. It is taboo to destroy all life on a planet (or a larger unit of habitation) and make it uninhabitable (or just gone) in a single sweep. Whether this is done by means of a relativistic kill vehicle, making a sun go nova, dropping a really big bomb, or even just sending in genocidal ground troops ordered to give a planet some sort of high-tech Carthage treatment, does not matter. Habitable planets in reasonable range are considered a finite resource. Even though the technology is there, no one wants to escalate the conflict to the point where they're very rapidly destroying the things they're fighting over.
Large-scale biological weapons. An engineered disease strikes at exactly the scale relevant to humans -- it targets an entire society. If it is very contagious, has a long sleeper stage, and is extremely hard to detect for someone not aware of its existence, it could potentially spread to an entire civilization before entering its lethal stage. Even though the societies may be more spread out than those on Earth, as long as somewhere there's a chain of human interaction without protective suits, the weapon will simply expand to match the size of the targeted society. One "successful" application of such a weapon would destroy one side of the conflict. When the odds are relatively even, this is a gamble none of the sides want to take, so they have agreed that research into these weapons is forbidden.
"Literal" doomsday devices. Weapons that are known to be powerful enough to destroy all traces of humanity, including whoever pulls the trigger. These would only ever be activated by the losing side in a war, which means that the winning side has to be careful not to go too far. For the exact means, go wild with inventing stuff (perhaps the creation of a gigantic black hole at a well-chosen point?). It doesn't matter a lot, because if this technology is ever activated, the book/campaign/game just ends in a rather unsatisfying fashion -- so it probably shouldn't be done. The interesting part is the "Dr. Strangelove"-style climate that arises from this being somehow possible.

If you want the story to be largely about people shooting each other with guns, rather than politics, the ban on these weapons should be stable and unbroken. Having all-powerful "Observers" is one way to achieve this. However, I think it'd still be a good thing if the class of banned weapons made some sense.

Nuclear weapons aren't necessarily doomsday devices, they're just very inconvenient. Now if you want to, say, retake the nuked planet you need rad suits or some other anti-radiation modification to your units to insure they don't start falling apart.

Also, large superweapons, with the power to destroy planets and the like have been built. They are often either discovered and destroyed during construction, or are finished and quickly swarmed by a massive fleet attack. A galaxy- or system-destroying weapon hasn't been developed yet, mostly due to the immense resources needed to build it. Even if you have all the technology, it will be very expensive, and will quite possibly be attacked by a huge enemy attack force. The only side which has such weapons is one that was very recently introduced, and even now the main cast/galaxy has only discovered a single of their ships, which is on a scouting mission in their galaxy.

As for the Observers, they aren't all-powerful. They're just enough of a threat that they could tip the balance, and nobody wants to be on the wrong end of that. They are insanely advanced as far as spying, information gathering and cloaking goes, yes, but other than that they are about around everyone else's level.

As for winning...well, unless one side takes the time and resources to build such a weapon, then they'd be backed into a corner. If not, they could keep their fronts under control. Imagine three people locked in a contest of strength, each with a weapon such as brass knuckles tucked in their belt. If you take the time to get the weapon, you can do more damage, but will likely be clobbered or at least injured while getting it out/ready. The new civilization is the mysterious person off to the left with a machine gun.

[Zocelot]

I imagine that due to the uselessness of conventional warfare, armies would merely be mobilized and fight for propoganda effects, and the real outcome of the war would be determined by assassins, terrorists and other such groups.

[PersonMan]

I imagine that due to the uselessness of conventional warfare, armies would merely be mobilized and fight for propoganda effects, and the real outcome of the war would be determined by assassins, terrorists and other such groups.

And these people would kill the leadership how...?

Most high-level generals are Energyks(i.e. they have special abilities revolving around an ambiguous "energy"). The leaders of two of the factions are unknown, anyways.

[Stormthorn]

PS: a football stadium of soldier's actually isn't that big by space standards. I thought you meant something along the lines of a ship a few kilometers big, filled to the brink with soldiers and materiel. But even then, IMO go for something smaller unless it's easy to shield the soldiers. By that time I'm pretty sure there will be weapons the size of a stinger missile that can take out half that ship. Even if you kill the guy using it afterwards

A ship a few kilometers long wouldnt be able to land with the soldiers on it. It owuld crush itself.

So you would have lots of soldiers stuck in orbit.

[Coidzor]

Maybe. But the primary thing wrong with this is that most larger ships have the shields to resist land-based missile attacks, or have magnetic shielding. Magnetic shielding is the use of a magnetic field to hold a screen of small metal spheres a certain distance from the ship, causing missiles and the like to explode against them, rather than the ship

Meh. We had a remote-controlled object throw a piece of metal onto the moon. I was thinking more along the lines of using a railgun to fire a bomb into orbit.

You could do that. Except really, they'd probably already have the bombs in orbit, keyed to cluster **** anyone dumb enough to not generate friendly codes. They could easily set up a space elevator or something to get things up into orbit when it's not a real-time space combat situation to prepare for the inevitable attempted genocide by one of the other two sides.

And if planets are really so valuable as all of this, then there should also be orbital defense platforms of some caliber around all of 'em.

And the shields are only going to be so good...

This reminds me, the proviso against nuclear weapons... Why do the observers' enforce this? What's their real motivation. On the time scale they're operating on, tactical nuclear armaments aren't going to matter to them and global nuclear destruction is prevented by the greed of the individual sides.

Why does this cover ship-to-ship use?


I never said the ships actually landed, did I? I was thinking more along the lines of a single giant ship finding several small landing zones sanitized by bomber/fighter groups beforehand, dropping off a smaller transport to prepare a base, and then do the same thing several more times. Air support keeps the enemy pinned down as well as they can during this phase.

This makes a lot more sense if the large ship just went into low orbit and launched the drop-ships down from there as it revolved around the drop points than to enter the atmosphere, and then you basically have troop-transport level carrier-ish-class ships amongst the battle fleet in addition to your destroyers and such. Basically having a set of them becoming semi-permanent satellites in addition to satellites which would be brought along to replace the destroyed satellite defense network and offer some level of tactical support to the ground war via at least imaging if not the satellite's armaments.

[Yoren]

And these people would kill the leadership how...?

Most high-level generals are Energyks(i.e. they have special abilities revolving around an ambiguous "energy"). The leaders of two of the factions are unknown, anyways.

Whuh? When did this happen and what kind of abilities does this entail?

[PersonMan]

A ship a few kilometers long wouldnt be able to land with the soldiers on it. It owuld crush itself.

So you would have lots of soldiers stuck in orbit.

Depends on the planet. There could also be more advanced structural building, etc. In other words, magic science!

[PersonMan]

You could do that. Except really, they'd probably already have the bombs in orbit, keyed to cluster **** anyone dumb enough to not generate friendly codes. They could easily set up a space elevator or something to get things up into orbit when it's not a real-time space combat situation to prepare for the inevitable attempted genocide by one of the other two sides.

And if planets are really so valuable as all of this, then there should also be orbital defense platforms of some caliber around all of 'em.

And the shields are only going to be so good...

This reminds me, the proviso against nuclear weapons... Why do the observers' enforce this? What's their real motivation. On the time scale they're operating on, tactical nuclear armaments aren't going to matter to them and global nuclear destruction is prevented by the greed of the individual sides.

Why does this cover ship-to-ship use?



This makes a lot more sense if the large ship just went into low orbit and launched the drop-ships down from there as it revolved around the drop points than to enter the atmosphere, and then you basically have troop-transport level carrier-ish-class ships amongst the battle fleet in addition to your destroyers and such. Basically having a set of them becoming semi-permanent satellites in addition to satellites which would be brought along to replace the destroyed satellite defense network and offer some level of tactical support to the ground war via at least imaging if not the satellite's armaments.

Orbital defenses are a planet's first line of defense. Also, bombs like that in orbit could be bypassed by hurling the remains of destroyed ships into the "minefield".

The Observers are effectively an information-gathering group placed by an enemy which will emerge far later in the time continuum. The Observers uphold things like these, temporary treaties, etc. For a small insurance-esque fee, all of the factions make sure that if an enemy breaks a treaty or something along those lines, then the Observers will deal with it.

Ship-to-ship use I hadn't thought of.

Satellite networks' modern function is usually taken over by the fleet in orbit, as most large ships have enough communication equipment and the like to do so, but they'd probably bring some satellites with them to such things as well.


Whuh? When did this happen and what kind of abilities does this entail?

Meh. There's a ton of details like this that I don't want to put in one mega-post detailing them.

Basically, some people are Energyks and have abilities that come from an ambigous "energy". This, depending on their strength, allows them to fly, perform acts of superhuman strength, speed, endurance, etc. Some of them are more specialized, but most of them just have all of these abilities to a certain extent. Each side uses their Energyks primarily against those of their enemies, rather than on destroying masses of enemy troops.

[Mercenary Pen]

Meh. There's a ton of details like this that I don't want to put in one mega-post detailing them.

Basically, some people are Energyks and have abilities that come from an ambigous "energy". This, depending on their strength, allows them to fly, perform acts of superhuman strength, speed, endurance, etc. Some of them are more specialized, but most of them just have all of these abilities to a certain extent. Each side uses their Energyks primarily against those of their enemies, rather than on destroying masses of enemy troops.

So basically, they're similar to jedi, but without the morality code and the copyright issues...

[PersonMan]

So basically, they're similar to jedi, but without the morality code and the copyright issues...

I guess...But they aren't as organized, or in one group. So, to continue the Star Wars referencing, they're more like Force-users in general than Jedi. And their powers are flashier. And they don't spend a good chunk of the first movies weakened.

[Yoren]

Are you positive you've never read any of the WH40K literature?

These dude's remind me a lot of Farseers and/or the other various psykers.

[Coidzor]

Yeah. I know hydrogen bombs at least are actually clean aside from the atomic bomb used to set 'em off and basically become miniature suns. Which would seriously inconvenience anything in the immediate vicinity. Actually, if they have anything like cold fusion their nukes would be practically fallout-less.

[PersonMan]

Are you positive you've never read any of the WH40K literature?

These dude's remind me a lot of Farseers and/or the other various psykers.

I've read one book. I thought it was a standalone novel. Recently, I reread it and had some idea of what happened. Some spider people fought over this craftworld-whatever, and the brother died, and...Meh. I've read a bit on wiki on WH40K, and the psykers' flavor is different, but the Energyks do similar things. Except with more energy blasts and the like. And explosions.


Yeah. I know hydrogen bombs at least are actually clean aside from the atomic bomb used to set 'em off and basically become miniature suns. Which would seriously inconvenience anything in the immediate vicinity. Actually, if they have anything like cold fusion their nukes would be practically fallout-less.

Hmmm. Well, that would be quite possible...

Effectively what I imagine happened was a huge expansion, almost solely into space and space-faring technology, and the mass production of ground units on a massive scale. Therefore, these could could be used by the new group, but the others probably won't utilize them much...[/railroad plot]

[thubby]

i would give one faction small craft with jump capability, it would instantly give them guerrilla tactics

edit: so noted
edit2: you could explain them (if you really want to) as being severely cut down versions of normal jump engines. giving them sorter ranges/less frequent use/cooling issues/or what have you

[Mercenary Pen]

i would give one faction small craft with jump capability, it would instantly give them gorilla tactics

I think you mean guerrilla tactics, because gorilla tactics are quite different.

[PersonMan]

i would give one faction small craft with jump capability, it would instantly give them guerrilla tactics

edit: so noted
edit2: you could explain them (if you really want to) as being severely cut down versions of normal jump engines. giving them sorter ranges/less frequent use/cooling issues/or what have you

The problem being that small groups of "warp"-capable ships couldn't do much damage. Most planets behind the fronts either have several large warships defending them, or large orbital battle stations.


I think you mean guerrilla tactics, because gorilla tactics are quite different.

What are gorilla tactics, anyways? [/derail]

[pendell]

In a 'hard' SF setting, I don't see armies as having much to do.

It's not really plausible to fight a war against an *entire planet* to conquer it. That would require millions, if not billions, of soldiers for every world. Instead, I suggest the following alternative:

Isolate the planet. What exactly is on the planet that you truly need, anyway? Put some sort of automatic defense system in orbit that knocks down anything like a launch plume, leave the ground-dwellers to rot. Take any resources you need from asteroids, gas giant rings, and other planets in the system. Water ice, Methane ice, minerals of various kinds are probably all available in far greater quantity than on the planet. And you don't have to come up the gravity well.

So why bother landing at all? If you can't just easily mine orbit with a defense system, just go to the local asteroid belt, put thrusters on one end of a rock
and a guidance package on the other, bombard the planet with Dinosaur killers until there's no technology above the Stone Age. Then leave the planet dwellers to their own devices while looting the rest of the solar system.

In such a world, ground forces would be used more in the role of modern special forces than a real 'army', when you're looking for intelligence gathering, hostage rescue, counterinsurgency, extraction of resources and people, and so forth. For those times when you need an instrument more delicate than a Dinosaur Killer.

I can't imagine an operation to conquer an entire planet -- to forcefully eject one side's colonists to make room for another's -- unless it was motivated by something like a crusade. In the crusades on earth, thousands of people fought for hundreds of years over a fairly worthless chunk of real estate because of it's cultural significance, not because it had any great economic value.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[thubby]

The problem being that small groups of "warp"-capable ships couldn't do much damage. Most planets behind the fronts either have several large warships defending them, or large orbital battle stations.

What are gorilla tactics, anyways? [/derail]

who said anything about small groups? putting a cluster of them throughout a system allows for easy detection of incoming threats and makes the force itself incredibly difficult to attack. if something happens they all jump to the threat.

on a different note, what keeps people from using jump engines to attack other ships? for however much it costs to build a super ship it has to cost less to just put an engine in a shell and launch it at them.

[PersonMan]

who said anything about small groups? putting a cluster of them throughout a system allows for easy detection of incoming threats and makes the force itself incredibly difficult to attack. if something happens they all jump to the threat.

on a different note, what keeps people from using jump engines to attack other ships? for however much it costs to build a super ship it has to cost less to just put an engine in a shell and launch it at them.

Well, the "Warp" engines aren't instantaneous. They need, on average, about half a minute to go from standby to warp-ready mode. This means that picket defenders will either need to quickly evade an enemy attacking force, or attack, sending one ship away to warn the rest of the system.

The "warp" itself puts quite a bit of stress on the ship, so it needs a relatively thick hull and the like to keep from tearing apart. People built on this to get powerful shields and thick hulls, which makes such attacks relatively ineffective. Unless I misunderstood you? Do you mean to send a ship into warp and hurl it at the enemy, or...?


In a 'hard' SF setting, I don't see armies as having much to do.

It's not really plausible to fight a war against an *entire planet* to conquer it. That would require millions, if not billions, of soldiers for every world. Instead, I suggest the following alternative:

Isolate the planet. What exactly is on the planet that you truly need, anyway? Put some sort of automatic defense system in orbit that knocks down anything like a launch plume, leave the ground-dwellers to rot. Take any resources you need from asteroids, gas giant rings, and other planets in the system. Water ice, Methane ice, minerals of various kinds are probably all available in far greater quantity than on the planet. And you don't have to come up the gravity well.

So why bother landing at all? If you can't just easily mine orbit with a defense system, just go to the local asteroid belt, put thrusters on one end of a rock
and a guidance package on the other, bombard the planet with Dinosaur killers until there's no technology above the Stone Age. Then leave the planet dwellers to their own devices while looting the rest of the solar system.

In such a world, ground forces would be used more in the role of modern special forces than a real 'army', when you're looking for intelligence gathering, hostage rescue, counterinsurgency, extraction of resources and people, and so forth. For those times when you need an instrument more delicate than a Dinosaur Killer.

I can't imagine an operation to conquer an entire planet -- to forcefully eject one side's colonists to make room for another's -- unless it was motivated by something like a crusade. In the crusades on earth, thousands of people fought for hundreds of years over a fairly worthless chunk of real estate because of it's cultural significance, not because it had any great economic value.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Well, for the most part...Neither sides colonize. The natives are usually relatively far away from the combat zones. As for gathering resources outside of planets...Well, years upon years of war wears away such resources. I imagine that they began with a different strategy, of fleets blasting eachother and small stations receiving a planet's "tax" of minerals and sending it to whichever faction controlled the area. However, once the other resources began to show signs of running low(ie max production nearly reached), then terrestrial resources were seen as more viable-and necessary.

Then again, our debating may completely change the universe, as I didn't use all too much deep thinking when I originally created the idea of huge fleets and hordes of soldiers fighting planet to planet.

[pendell]

Well, years upon years of war wears away such resources.


Do you have any idea just how much *stuff* is in one ring of Jupiter? And Jupiter has a lot of rings. Not to mention Saturn. Not to mention the asteroid belt.

On a rough guess, I'll wager the available resources in space in the solar system exceed those available on the earth itself by a couple orders of magnitude. And it's not at the bottom of a gravity well.

Once you're in space, it's much more economical to move about because you no longer need to over come gravity to get anywhere -- a gentle shove could send a package across the solar system in time. Careful plotting and use of gravity assists with the aid of a navigation aid something like the Interplanetary Transport Network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network) allows you to ship things at a cost of , say, $XX a pound, whereas it takes (with current technology) $XXXXX/pound to get something to orbit.

When you colonize a solar system, you don't actually need a planet. All you need is a star and some water ice.

-- when you have water ice, pick a spot in appropriate orbit around the sun. Ship your ice there -- even just kick it to get it moving. No gravity means it goes forever.

If you've picked a good spot in the Habitable Zone, you now have sunlight and water. Build an orbital habitat with a decent rotation. You now have gravity, sunlight, earth and water. Which means you can have plants. Which means you can have animals.

Imagine entire fleets, clusters of these habitats producing food and fuel. Imagine them larger than terrestrial cities, with amusement parks, theaters, and shopping. There's no gravity to limit the size of the structure, so it just keeps getting bigger.

Imagine no pollution ,because all the heavy industry is in separate satellites.

Imagine commerce, between miners producing the water and minerals needed, between industrial satellites producing finished goods, food stations producing food, and amusement domes. Each connected by tethers, or reachable by spacecraft, each one less than a tenth the power of one required to boost out of earth orbit.

In such a world, perhaps 'civilization' will not center on planets, any more than modern society centers on fields or forests. No, cities on earth are built on traffic intersections -- rivers and seaports and oases. Perhaps the real centers of civilization in such a universe would be vast space cities at gravitational nexii, or Lagrange points in orbit. Or, if there is FTL travel and 'jump nodes', perhaps the 'cities' would be located at the jump nodes as well.

These are the places in the solar system of real economic value. These are the things armies will contend with and fight for.

In such a world, perhaps 'planets' are isolated, where only primitives without space flight and the very rich who can afford the freight rates live on them. Or, perhaps planets are also used as prison colonies. In a universe where 90% of spacecraft cannot easily escape earth orbit, putting a prison for the worst of the worst at the bottom of a gravity well would be a highly effective deterrent to escape.

Players of the 'Freespace' series of games know that the Shivans in-game followed a model very similar to this one, never landing on parents -- their only interaction with planets was to exterminate the civilizations dwelling on them.

In such a world, military operations would be space combat and boarding operations. I suspect that capturing these spatial habitats would be far more doable than attempting to conquer an entire planet.

This might make a good SF story one day, if I can find the time...

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[tribble]

My response to the majority of the responses was TL;DR. but, I did have an Idea:
Aluminum/Iron Oxide capped missles. When Aluminum reacts with Iron Oxide it gets really, really hot. a powder of the two is currently used to fuse together train tracks, I believe. so anyway, a warhead of the two could possibly burn through starship hull. just an Idea.

A question: What about assasins? in a fight of this scale it seems the only way one could win.

[PersonMan]

Do you have any idea just how much *stuff* is in one ring of Jupiter? And Jupiter has a lot of rings. Not to mention Saturn. Not to mention the asteroid belt.

On a rough guess, I'll wager the available resources in space in the solar system exceed those available on the earth itself by a couple orders of magnitude. And it's not at the bottom of a gravity well.

Once you're in space, it's much more economical to move about because you no longer need to over come gravity to get anywhere -- a gentle shove could send a package across the solar system in time. Careful plotting and use of gravity assists with the aid of a navigation aid something like the Interplanetary Transport Network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network) allows you to ship things at a cost of , say, $XX a pound, whereas it takes (with current technology) $XXXXX/pound to get something to orbit.

When you colonize a solar system, you don't actually need a planet. All you need is a star and some water ice.

-- when you have water ice, pick a spot in appropriate orbit around the sun. Ship your ice there -- even just kick it to get it moving. No gravity means it goes forever.

If you've picked a good spot in the Habitable Zone, you now have sunlight and water. Build an orbital habitat with a decent rotation. You now have gravity, sunlight, earth and water. Which means you can have plants. Which means you can have animals.

Imagine entire fleets, clusters of these habitats producing food and fuel. Imagine them larger than terrestrial cities, with amusement parks, theaters, and shopping. There's no gravity to limit the size of the structure, so it just keeps getting bigger.

Imagine no pollution ,because all the heavy industry is in separate satellites.

Imagine commerce, between miners producing the water and minerals needed, between industrial satellites producing finished goods, food stations producing food, and amusement domes. Each connected by tethers, or reachable by spacecraft, each one less than a tenth the power of one required to boost out of earth orbit.

In such a world, perhaps 'civilization' will not center on planets, any more than modern society centers on fields or forests. No, cities on earth are built on traffic intersections -- rivers and seaports and oases. Perhaps the real centers of civilization in such a universe would be vast space cities at gravitational nexii, or Lagrange points in orbit. Or, if there is FTL travel and 'jump nodes', perhaps the 'cities' would be located at the jump nodes as well.

These are the places in the solar system of real economic value. These are the things armies will contend with and fight for.

In such a world, perhaps 'planets' are isolated, where only primitives without space flight and the very rich who can afford the freight rates live on them. Or, perhaps planets are also used as prison colonies. In a universe where 90% of spacecraft cannot easily escape earth orbit, putting a prison for the worst of the worst at the bottom of a gravity well would be a highly effective deterrent to escape.

Players of the 'Freespace' series of games know that the Shivans in-game followed a model very similar to this one, never landing on parents -- their only interaction with planets was to exterminate the civilizations dwelling on them.

In such a world, military operations would be space combat and boarding operations. I suspect that capturing these spatial habitats would be far more doable than attempting to conquer an entire planet.

This might make a good SF story one day, if I can find the time...

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Well. I actually read that. Nice.

For the resources bit, I'm relatively ignorant, but what I'm imagining-hundreds of ships regularly blasting eachother apart-is probably not very likely. Blame ten-year-old me.

About the rest: Nah, doesn't really fit what I'm looking for. Maybe for another time.

[PersonMan]

My response to the majority of the responses was TL;DR. but, I did have an Idea:
Aluminum/Iron Oxide capped missles. When Aluminum reacts with Iron Oxide it gets really, really hot. a powder of the two is currently used to fuse together train tracks, I believe. so anyway, a warhead of the two could possibly burn through starship hull. just an Idea.

A question: What about assasins? in a fight of this scale it seems the only way one could win.

Remember: shields and thick hulls. These hulls are very dense and very thick. I'd say, maybe...Well, if I come up with a number I'll be physics'd by some one saying that X hull thickness would just be destroying by Y scientific phenomenon. So....meh.

Assassins: Once again, most important targets are Energyks or protected by Energyks.

[Mercenary Pen]

Assassins: Once again, most important targets are Energyks or protected by Energyks.

And thus, the assassins might also be Energyks- or have Energyks as part of their special forces/black ops team.

[Myrmex]

If each side only has a few hundred planets, are WMD that worthwhile?

Are their tech levels such that they can rebuild planets on the same order as we can currently tear a city down/rebuild one?

With an appropriate level of technology, ruining a planet wouldn't be that hard. Shooting meteors at high speeds, opening gravity wells to screw with oceans, use of enough atomics to ignite the atmosphere- there are all sorts of inventive and relatively easy ways to kill a bunch of people and break a lot of things that there wouldn't be a whole lot of defense against. What do you do when you've got the oort cloud moving towards your planet at 0.15 c?

[Kcalehc]

For ease of population control under planetary conquest; make the society or basic concept of the galaxy basically feudal. The peons rarely see their masters, are poor, undereducated and illiterate. On every world (they could have even been bred/cloned in this fashion). This way you can take a planet by taking out its leaders and replacing them, and the populace for the most part wouldn't realy notice anyway. (except for the few caught in the crossfire, but with illiteracy rampant and almost no information flow to them, the rest wouldn't see it anyway).

If you have semi-intelligent machines and few new science/engineering problems you don't actually need (m)any smart people anymore. Soldiers can be bred/cloned/built for their purpose and have no allegience to a particular homeworld.


Only a core of elites have any idea what's going on, or even that there is something going on, or even that there are other planets on which it could go on, the whole war thing being just personal power grabs/empire building.


As to the nukes thing, well thats easy. Don't have the planets/people be entirely carbon/oxygen based. I'm fairly certain that you can make them something else, breathing an atmosphere that, given a nuclear explosion would start a fire that would burn the entire atmosphere off (like some scientists were actually worried about happening here on earth before the first tests...). Thus negating the use of nukes against planets (though probably nuclear power too, but meh, you can have something else).

[PersonMan]

And thus, the assassins might also be Energyks- or have Energyks as part of their special forces/black ops team.

They'd have to be very powerful, since if the targets are guarded their guards will probably be many, and very powerful/well-trained...The results would probably vary from case to case.


If each side only has a few hundred planets, are WMD that worthwhile?

Are their tech levels such that they can rebuild planets on the same order as we can currently tear a city down/rebuild one?

With an appropriate level of technology, ruining a planet wouldn't be that hard. Shooting meteors at high speeds, opening gravity wells to screw with oceans, use of enough atomics to ignite the atmosphere- there are all sorts of inventive and relatively easy ways to kill a bunch of people and break a lot of things that there wouldn't be a whole lot of defense against. What do you do when you've got the oort cloud moving towards your planet at 0.15 c?

At this point, I'm officially declaring two things.

One: I now have tow settings, the one I started with and another birthed from this thread's discussions.
Two: I have no idea what c is.

To respond to your post, most factions don't want to destroy planets. Planet creation is possible, but would probably take quite some time. If a faction destroys a planet, or renders it uninhabitable, there'll probably be quite a strong backlash. They'll probably have terrorist/freedom fighter/whatever groups popping up in their territory for nearly a decade.


For ease of population control under planetary conquest; make the society or basic concept of the galaxy basically feudal. The peons rarely see their masters, are poor, undereducated and illiterate. On every world (they could have even been bred/cloned in this fashion). This way you can take a planet by taking out its leaders and replacing them, and the populace for the most part wouldn't realy notice anyway. (except for the few caught in the crossfire, but with illiteracy rampant and almost no information flow to them, the rest wouldn't see it anyway).

If you have semi-intelligent machines and few new science/engineering problems you don't actually need (m)any smart people anymore. Soldiers can be bred/cloned/built for their purpose and have no allegience to a particular homeworld.


Only a core of elites have any idea what's going on, or even that there is something going on, or even that there are other planets on which it could go on, the whole war thing being just personal power grabs/empire building.


As to the nukes thing, well thats easy. Don't have the planets/people be entirely carbon/oxygen based. I'm fairly certain that you can make them something else, breathing an atmosphere that, given a nuclear explosion would start a fire that would burn the entire atmosphere off (like some scientists were actually worried about happening here on earth before the first tests...). Thus negating the use of nukes against planets (though probably nuclear power too, but meh, you can have something else).

Huh. I don't think I'll do that, but what you outline is quite a bit like what I already have set up. Basically, the local governments function autonomously, and most of the fighting takes place away from these areas, and the locals pay a smallish "tax" of minerals to whoever is in power a the time. Unless one group raises or lowers this amount, the locals aren't really affected.

[Keshay]

Two: I have no idea what c is.

Really? That's disappointing. c (as in E=mc^2) is the speed of light in a vacuum ~300million meters/second.

[PersonMan]

Really? That's disappointing. c (as in E=mc^2) is the speed of light in a vacuum ~300million meters/second.

I don't know out of context. I'm in middle school...There could be a dozen meanings...

[Keshay]

In the context provided:

What do you do when you've got the Oort cloud moving towards your planet at 0.15 c?
It is crystal clear that c is a velocity. The "moving towards you at 0.15c" part of the sentence tells you that. From there it is excruciatingly simple to determine what the definition is.

And really, Middle School? They Might be Giants is still popular with kids in middle school these days? (A rash assumption I'm making based on your screen name, which is from a line in a TMBG song). Oddly, middle school is when I first started liking them too, when Flood came out.

In regard to the setting you're creating, I'm wondering if you've given thought as to why these factions continue to fight, despite the apparent lack of purpose. "Resource Accumulation" or the like is not a very good motive. From evertything you've described, the warfare is a zero-sum or negative gain proposition. Attacking is very expensive, defending is very expensive, and the important resources are very scarce.

Large, epic battles are visually interesting, but they are not a cause unto themselves. I'd give some thought as to the motivations for the war versus suing for peace before getting too deep into the logistics of how the war is waged. Multiple examples of why the sort of war you've described would be illogical, tactically irresponsible and logistically impossible. Take some of that to heart and think of a reason for why the fighting is even happening in the first place.

The first thing I thought of was "Why are these Observers screwing with the lesser races?" Even if their motives and society presented as you have described, there is the underlying suspicion that they are actually manipulating the other factions into fighting each other for thier own amusement or machinations.


Also consider that you may have too many plot devices. You have the endless war, the omnipotent overseers, Jedi, terminators, replicatiors, arachnids, the hapless border population, the FTL engines, and others. I'm not certain for what purpose you're developing this setting, but if its for a story, you've got a lot of material to cover and throwing it all in at once would make a real mess.

[Kcalehc]

If I were a space pirate, I'd want to be buried at C. ;)

[pendell]

Multiple examples of why the sort of war you've described would be illogical, tactically irresponsible and logistically impossible. Take some of that to heart and think of a reason for why the fighting is even happening in the first place.


That's assuming he's interested in making a 'hard' SF setting. If all he wants is a space opera like WH40K or Star Wars, then he can have all the ZAP! KAPOW! he wants without worrying about the details.

Y'think about it, most 'popular' SF (that actually finds its way onto movie screens instead of into the hardback section of the library) is all of the things you describe. And if he's making a setting for other middle school kids, there's no reason it needs to be more plausible than a setting where people fight with swords , fly spacecraft as if they were WWII fighters, and get beat by teddy bears with sticks.

In real 'hard' SF, interstellar war is mostly infeasible. The cost of projecting power over light year distances generally offsets any plausible gain from doing so.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Keshay]

It has nothing to do with "Hard Sci-Fi", even the most fantastic sci-fi stories provide some sort of reason for whatever conflict arises. Whether that reason is philosophical, political, spiritual, or whatever, there's a reason.

All we've been given so far is "all the sides want the same stuff for themselves" and "The Organians (or whatever his version is called) will stop weapons of mass destruction, then kick your puppy for good measure for even thinking about trying to break out of the inexorable cycle of death and destruction". No actual motives for why the fighting started or why peace is impossible have been explored.

It's like that cartoon scene, one bar patron walks up to the other, says "Let's Fight!!" To which the other replies "Them's Fighting Words!!" and a fight ensues. No reason for the fight, just guys who want to fight and explore no other way to interact with each other.

It does not bother me so much that the conflict described is untenable, or that its irrational, its that no purpose has been specified. Even the cop out of "we've been fighting for so long, we've forgotten any other way." would be better than saying they're fighting over resources they need for the sole purpose of fighting more.

[PersonMan]

In the context provided:

It is crystal clear that c is a velocity. The "moving towards you at 0.15c" part of the sentence tells you that. From there it is excruciatingly simple to determine what the definition is.

And really, Middle School? They Might be Giants is still popular with kids in middle school these days? (A rash assumption I'm making based on your screen name, which is from a line in a TMBG song). Oddly, middle school is when I first started liking them too, when Flood came out.

In regard to the setting you're creating, I'm wondering if you've given thought as to why these factions continue to fight, despite the apparent lack of purpose. "Resource Accumulation" or the like is not a very good motive. From evertything you've described, the warfare is a zero-sum or negative gain proposition. Attacking is very expensive, defending is very expensive, and the important resources are very scarce.

Large, epic battles are visually interesting, but they are not a cause unto themselves. I'd give some thought as to the motivations for the war versus suing for peace before getting too deep into the logistics of how the war is waged. Multiple examples of why the sort of war you've described would be illogical, tactically irresponsible and logistically impossible. Take some of that to heart and think of a reason for why the fighting is even happening in the first place.

The first thing I thought of was "Why are these Observers screwing with the lesser races?" Even if their motives and society presented as you have described, there is the underlying suspicion that they are actually manipulating the other factions into fighting each other for thier own amusement or machinations.


Also consider that you may have too many plot devices. You have the endless war, the omnipotent overseers, Jedi, terminators, replicatiors, arachnids, the hapless border population, the FTL engines, and others. I'm not certain for what purpose you're developing this setting, but if its for a story, you've got a lot of material to cover and throwing it all in at once would make a real mess.

Alright, about the c thing, I didn't really examine the context looking for a definition. Besides, I don't know how many 'c's there are in physics. I also didn't really give much thought to it, so...meh.

I have no idea of who TMBG are. I came up with the name PersonMan as a sort of quasi-funny name-esque thing.

About motivations and the like...Well, I've been trying to keep the setting relatively intact, but I now think that doing so is impossible, due to the high number of holes in the logic, and the like.

As to the Observer comments, there isn't any reason for that to not be so, is there?f In the end, they are spies for a hyper-advanced civilization. Suspicion isn't really a bad thing for these guys.

Maybe. This is more of a grand setting-esque thing than a real coherent plot or storyline, to be a backdrop for any actual plots I want to have. Also, I want to again point out that, if you're going to make a Star Wars reference, the Energyks are more like Force-users than Jedi.

[PersonMan]

It has nothing to do with "Hard Sci-Fi", even the most fantastic sci-fi stories provide some sort of reason for whatever conflict arises. Whether that reason is philosophical, political, spiritual, or whatever, there's a reason.

All we've been given so far is "all the sides want the same stuff for themselves" and "The Organians (or whatever his version is called) will stop weapons of mass destruction, then kick your puppy for good measure for even thinking about trying to break out of the inexorable cycle of death and destruction". No actual motives for why the fighting started or why peace is impossible have been explored.

It's like that cartoon scene, one bar patron walks up to the other, says "Let's Fight!!" To which the other replies "Them's Fighting Words!!" and a fight ensues. No reason for the fight, just guys who want to fight and explore no other way to interact with each other.

It does not bother me so much that the conflict described is untenable, or that its irrational, its that no purpose has been specified. Even the cop out of "we've been fighting for so long, we've forgotten any other way." would be better than saying they're fighting over resources they need for the sole purpose of fighting more.

I see. Well, the purpose is sort of...Well, one group is simply invading because that's all they do, another group is being sent to "soften up" the galaxy for a future invasion, while the others are either trying to survive to destroy eachother.

[Yoren]

It has nothing to do with "Hard Sci-Fi", even the most fantastic sci-fi stories provide some sort of reason for whatever conflict arises. Whether that reason is philosophical, political, spiritual, or whatever, there's a reason.

All we've been given so far is "all the sides want the same stuff for themselves" and "The Organians (or whatever his version is called) will stop weapons of mass destruction, then kick your puppy for good measure for even thinking about trying to break out of the inexorable cycle of death and destruction". No actual motives for why the fighting started or why peace is impossible have been explored.

It's like that cartoon scene, one bar patron walks up to the other, says "Let's Fight!!" To which the other replies "Them's Fighting Words!!" and a fight ensues. No reason for the fight, just guys who want to fight and explore no other way to interact with each other.

It does not bother me so much that the conflict described is untenable, or that its irrational, its that no purpose has been specified. Even the cop out of "we've been fighting for so long, we've forgotten any other way." would be better than saying they're fighting over resources they need for the sole purpose of fighting more.

I'm pretty sure a staple of the scifi genre is the hyper belligerent alien race. Their reasons for fighting could range anywhere from the overused "war is honorable and brings out the best in us" aliens, to beings that are wired to believe that to become immortal they must eliminate all competition (the immotiles from Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga spring to mind). Or one faction my simply be crazy SOBs like the Reavers from Firefly.

[Keshay]

I have no idea of who TMBG are. I came up with the name PersonMan as a sort of quasi-funny name-esque thing.

Oh, ok. That's actually good, I was a bit concerned that anyone would choose to identify themselves with that particular character. Give a listen to "Particle Man" by the aforementioned TMBG. IIRC, the line goes something like this:

"Person Man, Person Man hit on the head with a frying pan, lives his life in a garbage can, Person Man. Is he depressed? Or is he a mess? Does he feel totally worthless? Who came up with Person Man? Degraded man, Person Man."

You can see why I'm glad there is no connection.

My reason for questioning the motives as opposed to the logisitcs/execution of the war is the difference between flash and substance. Up to this point only the flash had been discussed, no substance. As I said before, explosions are fun and all, but after a certain point knowing why things are blowing up is more important than fireworks.

I like the idea that the Overseers are promoting continued warfare in order to soften up the galaxy for a future invasion. Its far easier to conquer multiple divided foes than a single, united alliance. Perhaps they could even go one step farther and actually provide damning or misinformation among the various factions in order to promote conflict. Maybe their prowess is vastly overestimated and they're not really the massively advanced benign overseers they present themselves to be?

I'm interested in hearing more about why everyone is fighting.

Actually, I'm interested in hearing more about Who these factions are too. we've covered "What" and "How" pretty well. When is basically irrelevant, but a timeline of past events would go a long way to describe Who is fighting and Why.

[pendell]

I like the idea that the Overseers are promoting continued warfare in order to soften up the galaxy for a future invasion. Its far easier to conquer multiple divided foes than a single, united alliance. Perhaps they could even go one step farther and actually provide damning or misinformation among the various factions in order to promote conflict. Maybe their prowess is vastly overestimated and they're not really the massively advanced benign overseers they present themselves to be?


You mean they are Pierson's Puppeteers? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson%27s_Puppeteers)

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[PersonMan]

Oh, ok. That's actually good, I was a bit concerned that anyone would choose to identify themselves with that particular character. Give a listen to "Particle Man" by the aforementioned TMBG. IIRC, the line goes something like this:

"Person Man, Person Man hit on the head with a frying pan, lives his life in a garbage can, Person Man. Is he depressed? Or is he a mess? Does he feel totally worthless? Who came up with Person Man? Degraded man, Person Man."

You can see why I'm glad there is no connection.

My reason for questioning the motives as opposed to the logisitcs/execution of the war is the difference between flash and substance. Up to this point only the flash had been discussed, no substance. As I said before, explosions are fun and all, but after a certain point knowing why things are blowing up is more important than fireworks.

I like the idea that the Overseers are promoting continued warfare in order to soften up the galaxy for a future invasion. Its far easier to conquer multiple divided foes than a single, united alliance. Perhaps they could even go one step farther and actually provide damning or misinformation among the various factions in order to promote conflict. Maybe their prowess is vastly overestimated and they're not really the massively advanced benign overseers they present themselves to be?

I'm interested in hearing more about why everyone is fighting.

Actually, I'm interested in hearing more about Who these factions are too. we've covered "What" and "How" pretty well. When is basically irrelevant, but a timeline of past events would go a long way to describe Who is fighting and Why.

...I see.

There are quite a few factions, but these are the main ones.

The AMF The AMF are a massive empire with no civilians. Before the conflict began, they expanded incredibly quickly, building thousands of mines and factories on planets they annexed. Now they are held only in check by their refusal to ally with anyone, and their continuous offensives against well-fortified targets. They are slowly gaining ground.
The AKF The AKF is the largest of the factions, with incredibly military power. They are the faction that's the most like a real nation. They want to survive, and are at war with the others to survive.
The Red Ring A small empire that once was nearly a hundred times as large, the Red Ring still holds a huge amount of firepower, and regularly invades the surrounding systems before being forced back.
AAAKF Stands for Allied Against AKF, this is a group that consists of the Master's forces, and those of several smaller factions that were once at war with the AKF but lost.
The Horde An insectoid group based loosely off of the Invid, they don't have any real territory, instead they travel in huge ships and occasionally raid planets for refined metals and the like or unknown reasons.
The Warring Factions A newly-united, incredibly powerful race of warriors, the Warring Factions hold a small amount of territory between the AKF and the Red Ring. Their system holds four planets in its star's habitable zone, and huge fleets patrol most of the system. They are currently focusing on rebuilding infrastructure.